
/yu^cj^^z^r^ *^^^t(::^^.C^u^ 



L^C^ 



HEAVEN 



Six Sermons 



BY 



REV. RICHARD MONTAGUE, D.D 



itJ} IHemorials 



BY 

REV. GEORGE E. MERRILL, D.D. 

AND 

REV. ALVAH HOVEY, D.D., LL.D. 




SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY, 

Boston . . . NEW YORK . . . Chicago. 



1896. 






<0 ^'^ ^^S'p7>^ 






Copyright, 1896, 
By Silver, Burdett and Company, 



The Li k ^v 
OF Co* • • i:ss 



WASHINGTON 






John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Richard Montague : A Memorial .... 9 

What is Heaven? 37 

Recognition in Heaven 59 

Is Heaven a Place? 81 

The Inauguration of Heaven . . . ' . . 107 

Is Heaven for All? 133 

The Way to Heaven . . . 159 



Richard Montague: A Tribute . . . . 183 



RICHARD MONTAGUE. 



By rev. GEORGE E. MERRILL, D. D. 



RICHARD MONTAGUE. 



A MEMORIAL. 

"XT THEN, in the hush that falls upon a com- 
pleted life, the spirit of a just man is 
made perfect, it is hard to turn back from our 
gazing into heaven to trace again the earthly 
way by which that soul came to the heights of 
its transfiguration. But love demands again 
the old familiar paths, and it is found that the 
footprints in the vanishing dust are the very 
least that remains to guide men as they tread 
where their companion has trod. Everywhere 
the air is scintillant with gleaming inspirations. 
The atmosphere is laden with the aroma of 
holiness. Men and women and children arise 
to call him blessed. The lamp that he kindled 
for his own way has given its flame to a thou- 
sand others. The words he spoke are yet echo- 
ing in many lives. And when we turn to look 



lo Richard Montague. 



heavenward again, a smile is upon our lips. 
Now, as a preface to his own words concerning 
Heaven, we briefly trace the rarely beautiful 
and brilliant career of this man of God. He 
was good, and true, and strong. He was brave 
to lead, heroic to suffer and endure. He was 
a man of piety, of deep spiritual experience 
and knowledge, anointed to preach the gospel 
of Christ. His native gifts and his rich culture, 
his clear thought and eloquent utterance, and 
the Providence which called him to positions 
of large trust, made him a minister whose ser- 
vice exalted him, and whose successful, though 
brief, life was a shining light to all who knew 
him. The crown of life that he has won sheds 
its radiance over the way of life by which he 
reached the goal. 

Richard Montague was born in Westboro', 
Mass., July 4, 1853, the third child of Uriel and 
Jane Stevens Montague. His father was the 
son of a Baptist minister, the Rev. Elijah Mon- 
tague, but there were no other ministers in the 
direct line of his descent from the first Richard, 
who came to America prior to 1634. The name 
Richard in the family is traced back to the 



A Memorial. 1 1 

third generation from the founder of the Eng- 
lish branch of the family, who came into 
England at the time of the Conquest, A. D., 
1066. No definite records of the boyhood of 
Richard in Westboro' are preserved before the 
date of his own journals, the earliest of which 
is for the year 1868; but the little fellow is 
affectionately remembered by many of the 
towns-people, and the name of Dick Montague 
is often on their lips. He was at once of an 
unusually thoughtful and also active dispo- 
sition. His father's means were not sufficient 
to surround his family with luxuries that so 
often enervate the children of the home, 
and Richard added to the usual sports and 
occupations of boyhood an enterprising busi- 
ness life, which he enjoyed and made a useful 
training for the future. Aiding his father in 
his hardware-store and about his book-keeping ; 
caring daily for the horse; having charge of 
the room of the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation, he yet found time for other pursuits. 
He established a thriving business in popped 
corn, popping it himself and taking it to the 
factories, where he found an entrance denied 
to every one else. With a schoolmate he set 



12 Richard M out ague, 

up a circulating library, the stock at first con- 
sisting of some of the better dime novels, and 
the patronage being chiefly from the school- 
boys ; but gradually the library was improved 
and enlarged, and its patronage widened, until 
its dividends became of considerable value. 
His interest in the library continued until he 
left Westboro'. Another scheme successfully 
carried out was the formation of an amateur 
fire company called the Bucket Boys, the plan 
originating with Montague. An opportunity 
soon occurred to prove the valor of the Bucket 
Boys, and the Town Hall was saved from 
destruction by their prompt action. In recog- 
nition of this service the town provided a room 
for the company, and their equipment was 
largely increased by popular donation. All 
these activities were prophetic of the alertness 
and perseverance of his later life, and in all of 
them the seriousness of his purpose is evident. 
These schemes were not mere play, but every 
one had its utility. It should not be understood, 
however, that he had not the lighter and fun- 
loving side of character usually to be seen in 
boys. No boy ever had more of it. He was a 
leader in sports. He had a keen sense of the 



A Memorial. 13 

ridiculous, and a wit that enlivened everything 
he did. This was a conspicuous characteristic 
of him all through life, never transgressing the 
bounds of a refined taste, and never sacrificing 
principle to a joke ; but ever lighting up the 
lives of those around him with cheer. Even in 
his last illness his pain was mitigated by mirth- 
fulness, and the attendants at his bedside won- 
dered at his fun. 

In school Richard was more than ordinarily 
successful, and especially won distinction as a 
declaimer. At the age of sixteen he entered 
Wilbraham Academy, and he remained there 
a year and a half, a period of great importance 
in his intellectual and spiritual career. His 
diary records his interest in his studies, and the 
growing depth of his religious feeling. He was 
constant in attendance at prayer-meetings, and 
under date of October 19, 1869, he writes: ** I 
went to prayer-meeting in the Reading Room 
in the evening. Arose for prayers. Have 
made up my mind to try and obtain religion." 
The desire was sincere, and the effort serious 
and earnest; but a few days passed before he 
could write : " My mind is made up. I have 
sought God's forgiveness and have received it. 



14 Richard Montague. 

Henceforth It is my desire to live in a manner 
becoming a disciple of Christ, and, God helping 
me, I will do so." The next day he says : *' All 
day I have felt a sense of duty begun to be 
performed, and a relieved mind. I hope that 
I may receive still more light." It was the 
entrance upon a path of brightness that shone 
more and more unto the perfect day. There 
were some clouds, — perfect light was not grant- 
ed at once ; again and again doubts assailed 
him ; even at the time of his baptism he wrote : 
"My mind was in such a state that I did not 
gain that blessing which I desired, though I 
felt I was doing God's command ; " and for 
many days afterward he suffered doubts as to 
his conversion, " by means of which, I suppose, 
the devil is endeavoring to make me give up 
trying to serve God." His feelings were re- 
membered clearly in after life, and during his 
pastorate in Providence he wrote to Dr. How- 
ard, pastor of the Congregational Church in 
VVilbraham : " My experience in Wilbraham 
was peculiarly happy and sad. God led me 
through spiritual struggles both before and 
after my conversion, especially after it, that I 
can never forget. In that period of religious 



A MeinoriaL 1 5 

despair, which ensues after conversion in some 
minds, I was in large measure kept from all 
loss of hope and ambition by your ministra- 
tions. Few boys of sixteen, I fancy, are more 
thoroughly tried than was T during the very 
period to which you refer, when I was in your 
meetings." The letter shows not only the 
trouble of his own soul, but the wisdom of the 
devoted minister who guided him through the 
storm. Dr. Howard wrote to Dr. Flanders, 
then pastor of the Baptist Church in Westboro', 
and the latter baptized the new convert on 
Sunday, December 5, 1869. 

Even at this time Richard cherished the 
thought of entering the ministry. The same 
letter which has just been quoted says : '*' I was 
aware of your conviction of my fitness for the 
work, and though my plans developed gradu- 
ally, the ministry was always ahead of me after 
leaving Wilbraham as a more than possible life 
work." Well might the thought have entered 
other minds than his, for already he was taking 
frequent part in religious meetings, and the 
general feeling was expressed by one who said : 
"■ I like to hear that silver-haired boy speak." 
He was already set apart by God. 



1 6 Richard Montague. 

In the fall of 1870 he entered the senior 
class at Phillips Academy, Exeter, N. H., as a 
further preparation for the course at college 
which his ambition desired. At Exeter he 
secured the Bancroft scholarship. He re- 
mained only one year in this school, and en- 
tered Harvard University in 1871, completing 
the regular course of undergraduate studies in 
1875, and graduating with honors. He spent 
a year in Cambridge studying and teaching, 
and in the fall of 1876 entered the Harvard 
Divinity School for one year, from which he 
passed to the Newton Theological Institution 
for the completion of his theological training, 
graduating in 1879. His course at Harvard 
was one of marked success, and the year in 
the Divinity School at Cambridge, which he 
sought especially for the study of Textual 
Criticism and Exegesis in the department of 
Prof Ezra Abbot, was one of great enjoyment 
Dr. Abbot wrote at its close: " I have formed 
a very high opinion of his scholarship, his 
intellectual ability, and of his Christian char- 
acter." His studies at Newton were of an 
equally high quality, leaving impressions which 
suggested at a later day an invitation to a 



A Memorial. 17 



teacher's place in the Institution. On Oct. i, 
1879, he was Hcensed to preach by his church 
in Westboro.' 

At the close of his course of theological 
study he was invited almost simultaneously by 
the First Baptist Church of Lawrence, Mass., 
and the Central Baptist Church of Providence, 
R. I., to the pastorate. During an absence 
of Dr. Pidge, who had been the minister of 
the church in Lawrence, Mr. Montague had 
preached there frequently, and the people had 
already formed a strong attachment for him. 
Possibly this circumstance, and his own convic- 
tion that it would be wise to begin his ministry 
with the acquirement of experience in a smaller 
parish, together with the advice of the lady 
to whom he was soon to be married, inclined 
his choice to Lawrence, and the call of that 
church was accepted. He was ordained to 
the Christian Ministr}^ in Lawrence on Friday, 
Oct. 3, 1879, President Alvah Hovey, D. D., 
Prof. Heman Lincoln, D. D., and Rev. B. A. 
Greene, D. D., participating in the service. 
His work in Lawrence opened auspiciously, 
and the affection and respect of his people 
were given to him from the first. His mar- 



1 8 Richard Montague. 

riage to Miss Martha P. Cogswell of Cambridge- 
port occurred on May 20, 1880, and his wife 
became at once an eager and beloved helper 
in all the work which the women of the church 
were doing. She was easily a leader, and yet 
her tact and gentleness of spirit avoided many 
of the dangers to which leadership is liable, 
and her success in such work as naturally falls 
to a minister's wife was unqualified. Probably 
few pastorates of such short duration have 
resulted in binding the church and the pastor 
and his wife more firmly together than in this 
instance. It was with profound regret that 
Mr. Montague's resignation was received in 
July, 1 88 1, hardly more than a year and a half 
from the commencement of his work. But 
the reasons for the step now taken were co- 
gent, and the church acquiesced in his deci- 
sion, with such expressions of sorrow as 
rendered his departure the more difficult. He 
had been called again to the pulpit of the 
Central Church of Providence, and the pres- 
sure of indebtedness which he had incurred 
by his education, combined with the evident 
claims of the larger field in Providence, made 
the path of duty clear. The year and a half 



A Memorial. 19 



in Lawrence had resulted in the quickening of 
the church and the addition of ten converts to 
its membership ; while in every good work in 
the city he had an active part which won for 
him the esteem of all the people. Many ten- 
der remembrances of him are yet recalled, 
and the impressions made by his " sweetness 
of character, purity of life, earnestness of 
labor, devotedness of purpose, the clearness 
and power of his pulpit discourse with its rich- 
ness of Scriptural expression," words from the 
resolutions at the time of his resignation, re- 
main vivid in many hearts to-day. One habit 
of the young minister may illustrate many 
characteristics that did not fail to affect the 
hearts of those to whom he ministered. It was 
generally understood that he wn'shed to go 
from his study to the pulpit with a prayer 
upon his lips, without a break by the ordinary 
salutations of those whom he might meet; 
and it was felt that his preaching gained an 
additional power from this undisturbed spirit 
of devotion. It was remembered as a fitting 
close of such a ministry, that during the last 
service of baptism, when the eastern window 
above the baptistery was partly open, a white 



20 Richa7^d Montague. 

dove alighted upon the top of the window and 
rested there quietly. It seemed to many to be 
symbolic of the divine presence and blessing. 

The pastorate in Providence was begun in 
September, 1881, and continued until March 
16, 1887. Mr. Montague became almost at 
once a conspicuous preacher in Providence. 
Large congregations flocked to his ministry. 
During the year 1882, the meeting-house was 
renovated and improved, and greater facilities 
secured for work. Early in the same year 
Rev. W'm. F. Armstrong, a returned mission- 
ary, was employed by the generosity of Dea- 
con J. C. Hartshorn to assist the pastor in 
missionary work, and for more than two years 
he did efficient service, until, in the fall of 
1884, he returned to the foreign field. Before 
he relinquished his work, however, in the 
spring of 1884, the Rev. George C. Needham 
conducted a series of revival meetings, and a 
harvest was gathered. Mr. Montague's skill 
in organizing and directing the work of the 
church through these co-laborers, as well as 
during the whole course of this pastorate, 
was marked. The training gained in the 
activities of boyhood now bore its fruit in 



A Me7noriaL 21 

manhood, and his wise ordering of the oppor- 
tunities and powers of his large church was 
very noteworthy. With all this labor his 
preaching was not diminished in quality, and 
his utterances became daily more forcible, 
winning the favor of the people. His fine 
culture was no bar to spiritual power, and it 
was proved that God could use the polished 
weapon as well as rougher tools. Many were 
converted, and during his pastorate one hun- 
dred and eighteen persons were added to the 
church upon conversion. But under the se- 
vere strain upon his strength Mr. Montague 
found his health failing, and during the last 
year of his pastorate he was obliged to relin- 
quish his duties at times, and was finally di- 
rected by his physicians to leave New England 
and to discontinue preaching altogether for at 
least a year. On September 10, 1886, he pre- 
sented his resignation to the church ; but it 
was not accepted. In the assured love of his 
people, and with the most substantial proofs 
of their desires and hopes for his restoration 
to health, he was sent to Colorado Springs, 
with his wife and little son, that he might 
secure, if possible, the physical recuperation 



2 2 Richard Montague. 

that would enable him to go on with his work. 
It was only six months later, in March, 1887, 
upon his announcement that a resumption of 
the pastoral duties in New England would be 
impossible, that his people reluctantly accepted 
his resignation, with renewed evidences of their 
affection and care. His last year of active 
service in Providence was marked by his ap- 
pointment as one of the five clergymen, chosen 
for the first time in that year, to act as 
preachers to Harvard University. But his 
failing health precluded active service, and he 
never preached at the University under this 
appointment. He had also been invited to 
the chair of New Testament Interpretation in 
the Newton Theological Institution, but he 
had declined, feeling that his work in the pul- 
pit should not cease. 

Arrix'ing in Colorado Springs Mr. Montague 
and his family were received into the home of 
his friend, the pastor of the Baptist Church in 
that place, and remained there during several 
months. Rest and moderate exercise in the 
open air gave an opportunity for the wonder- 
ful climate of Colorado to produce its almost 
unvarying effects upon those threatened with 



A Memo7Hal. 23 



pulmonary disease. Daily his strength grew 
greater. F'rom the first he became cognizant 
of the nature and needs of the work of his 
friend in the pastorate of the church, and his 
counsels were often sought and given. When 
at last his friend laid down his office it was 
with the welcome knowledge that Mr. Mon- 
tague would be invited to assume it at once. 
On April 18, 1887, a call to the pastorate 
being deferred at his own desire, he assumed 
the supply of the pulpit for three months. 
Already he had become one of the congrega- 
tion, and had drawn all who knew him to an 
affectionate friendship by his genial disposition 
and fine spirit. New life and hope sprang up 
at once. A call to the pastorate, June 22, 1887, 
was wisely met by certain stimulating condi- 
tions, and though these were accepted in July, 
it was not until October of that year that he 
finally accepted the call, and entered upon the 
full duties of the office. A parsonage was 
soon erected at an expense of $5000, of which 
Mr. Montague secured $2000 by appeals to 
-Eastern friends, and in August, 1889, at the 
pastor's instance, the society proceeded to the 
erection of a commodious and beautiful house 



24 Richard Montague. 

of worship, at a cost of $42,000. This seemed 
to be an imperious necessity. The town was 
growing more rapidly than at any time in its 
history, the population doubling in two years. 
The old meeting-house, uninviting and ill- 
arranged, would seat not more than one hun- 
dred and twenty-fiv^e people. Mr. Montague's 
preaching was attracting great interest. The 
church, therefore, was ready to attempt what 
would have been wholly impossible a year 
previous, and even now seemed a Herculean 
task. But their pastor seemed to know no 
fear. His indefatigable efforts succeeded in 
securing a further large sum from the East, 
the society itself was led to most generous 
efforts, and the edifice was carried to comple- 
tion and dedicated Oct. 25, 1891, with an in- 
debtedness of hardly more than a third of its 
value. It was a marked success of devoted 
effort, and pastor and people rejoiced to- 
gether. The whole pastorate of Mr. Mon- 
tague was characterized by the same strong 
leadership which was evidenced in the build- 
in?" of this fine edifice. Nor did such care 
for the material interests of the church impair 
at all the spiritual ministry. During the six 



A Memorial. 2 5 



years the membership increased from one 
hundred and twenty-five to three hundred and 
forty-eight. The church gave to him its 
heartiest cooperation, and recognizing his 
physical weakness, secured the efficient assist- 
ance for nearly two years of Rev. F. W. Hart. 
Mr. Hart writes : — 

" I believe that one trait of his character, his 
Christian hospitality, explains as much as any other his 
remarkable success in that sanitarian town. When I 
came to him, a total stranger, he took me in, and 
for five years, with the exception of a short interval, 
I lived in his home. There were many whose first 
acquaintance was formed as mine had been, and it is 
not surprising that they loved him, and when restored 
to health followed him wherever he might lead in the 
work of the church." 

Mr. Hart adds a feature of his life in the West, 
which was continued almost up to the day of 
his death : — 

" The most remarkable thing was the fact that he 
continued to study and preach like a well man even 
after he was so frail that the shortest walk would pro- 
duce such violent coughing that he could not proceed. 
He used to derive much comfort from the lives of 
such men as Robert Hall, who labored on amid great 
physical infirmities." 



26 Richard Montaoue, 



A great sorrow fell upon Mr. Montague 
while he was in Colorado Springs. His wife 
after a brief illness died in October, 1890. 
She who had long and anxiously watched 
over him in his failing strength, now passed 
away from his side, the first to go into the 
world that knows no sickness and no pain. 
Her unusual adaptation to the position of 
a minister's wife, endearing her to the people, 
made her loss to the church a severe one; 
but in the circle of the home the blow was of 
unusual force, for not only were the affections 
torn as always in such bereavements, but the 
one who was left was pitiably unable to go 
on alone. He arose to his task with heroism, 
however, and his two little children found 
no lack of affectionate care, in which he was 
aided by the ever ready hearts and hands of 
his wife's noble family. A small volume of 
sermons, entitled Chancel Sermons, privately 
printed by request of the Ladies' Aid Society, 
was lovingly dedicated to his wife's memory. 

Mr. Montague's influence in Colorado was 
not confined to his church. In the city he 
became known as a power for good in many 
public matters, and his voice was frequently 



A Memorial. 2 7 



heard in the pulpits of Denver and upon 
collegiate platforms ; and in the summer of 
1890 the degree of Doctor of Divinity was 
conferred upon him by the State University 
at Boulder. 

It was becoming evident to all his friends 
that his strength was gradually failing, and 
no surprise would have been felt if he had 
relinquished at any time the responsibilities 
resting upon him. But it was a surprise to 
his church and the community, when he re- 
signed his charge, in October, 1 893, to accept 
an invitation to the large church at Newton 
Centre, Mass. It soon became known, how- 
ever, that his long residence in such a weak 
condition in a region so elevated had produced 
an incipient trouble of the heart, and his phy- 
sicians warned him that removal to a lower 
level was imperative. Many years before he 
had been invited to the pastorate of the same 
church in Newton Centre, but now his duty 
seemed so clear that he could not decline. 
Before his departure for the East it was his 
good fortune to have met Miss Mabel Swett, 
in whom he found one who could rebuild his 
domestic joys, and they were married Septem- 



28 Richard Montagtie. 

ber II, 1893. No greater boon could have 
been bestowed upon him by a loving Provi- 
dence, and the short remainder of his life 
was blessed by the perfect devotion of his 
wife. 

Dr. Montague began his work in Newton 
Centre, November i, 1893. He was received 
by his people with enthusiasm, and he found 
in them all that he could desire as affording 
a congenial fellowship for service. His cul- 
ture fitted him to minister to the most intel- 
lectual of his audience in this educational 
centre, while his practical skill in leadership 
made him bold enough to depart from tradi- 
tions, when it seemed necessary, and to adopt 
methods of effective value. His ministry won 
all hearts, and twenty-five persons, among 
them all the members of his own family, were 
baptized. The esteem in which he was held 
in Newton Centre is so fully expressed in the 
address by President Hovey of the Theologi- 
cal Institution, which finds place in this volume, 
that this brief memoir leaves unattempted any 
additional estimate of his success in this his 
last pastorate, and passes at once to the clos- 
ing scenes of his life. 



A Memorial. 29 

On the twenty-second day of May, 1895, he 
wrote to his classmates, who were to hold 
a class-meeting in connection with the Com- 
mencement of the Theological Institution : 
** I am too weak to be with you to-day in the 
body, but my spirit is with you, and in rejoic- 
ings, praises, and prayer I unite with you. My 
active work is finished. I resign my pastorate 
in a few days. I await the earthly future, be 
it longer or shorter, with serene confidence in 
the Divine Paternity; and the heavenly future 
is to me but one step onward in a path of 
glory even now begun." He had already been 
confined to his room during several weeks. 
Gradually his strength had failed. A long 
rest in the early spring had been necessary, 
from which he returned with elastic hope that 
he could go on with his work. But one Sun- 
day in the pulpit convinced him that the at- 
tempt was futile. He retained for a few weeks 
the care of the pulpit though he did not 
preach, but on May 24 he wrote his resigna- 
tion, and laid down his cherished work on earth 
forever. " When I began my pastorate here," 
he wrote, '' I confidently expected at least 
five years of work ; I hoped for ten. But 



30 Richard Montague. 

God wills otherwise." He desired his resig- 
nation to have effect July iSth, but this the 
loving and generous church would not allow. 
It was voted unanimously, first, that the 
church declines to accept the resignation of 
the pastor; second, that the pastor be relieved 
of all work and responsibility ; third, that the 
pastor's salary be continued in full. These 
brief words, worthy of the noble church that 
uttered them, were accompanied by such ex- 
pressions of love and confidence and sym- 
pathy, that his heart was greatly cheered. The 
appreciation of his work cast bright rays of 
sunshine over the last steps of his pathway. 
" Our pastor's sermons have been to us clear 
and refreshing streams from the Fountain of 
Life, and we fervently pray that his own spirit 
may continue to be strong in the Lord. Our 
pastor's life among us has been a noble lesson 
of patience and courage, doing us good when 
he knew it not, and we humbly ask the Father 
of mercies that it may be prolonged for our 
sakes. But whether his days are to be many 
or few we tender him hearty thanks for true 
service in the past, loving sympathy in the 
present, and loyal hope in the Lord for all 



A Memorial. 



that is highest and best in the future." These 
words, addressed to him while living, and not 
deferred until his eye could not read them or 
his heart warm beneath their affection, were 
a crowning blessing. He received them with 
grateful acquiescence and calmly awaited the 
end. 

On the first Sunday in July a little company 
gathered in the room of sickness to celebrate 
what all felt would be the last Communion. 
His church at the same hour was engaged in 
the same holy service, and by their appoint- 
ment one of the Deacons, Mr. Gustavus Forbes, 
and the Rev. George Bullen, D. D., were asked 
to bear the bread and wine to the pastor's 
bedside, that he might share with them once 
more the sacred feast. The invalid, his wife, 
and his son Richard, his friend who had seen 
so much of his life in Colorado as well as in 
New England, and the two brethren named, 
formed the little group. Dr. Bullen led in 
the service, in which, however, it was felt that 
the dying pastor was the real leader. At its 
close Dr. Montague himself requested the sing' 
ing of the hymn 

" Rock of ages, cleft for me," 



Richard Montague. 



after which he asked all to unite in repeating 
the Lord's Prayer. It was an hour never to 
be forgotten, filled with the tenderness and 
sweetness of Christian faith, resignation, and 
hope. 

A few weeks of suffering and heroic forti- 
tude remained. ** The pain is getting to be 
very tedious," he said to his friend. It was 
no longer possible to divert the mind, as in 
the weeks immediately preceding, when the 
close study of Chaucer's poems, "just for fun," 
kept him many days, and the critical exami- 
nation of St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians 
gave him harder work and keener delight. 
Now it was all patient waiting, the soul irradi- 
ated witli the heavenly light, the mind dwell- 
ing with jo}'ous anticipation on the coming 
glory and often eager to be gone, until on 
Wednesday, the 27th of July, the end of 
earth was reached and the heavenly fields 
were gladdened by his presence. The glory 
of the eternal life had long been hidden only 
by a breath. The breath ceased and the world 
upon the other side of it was revealed. 

The funeral rites were held in the meeting- 
house, where he had preached so often, on 



A Memorial, Z?y 

Saturday morning, Professor George Bullen, 
D. D., President Alvah Hovey, D. D., Rev. 
George E. Merrill, D. D., and Rev. Robert 
Cameron, taking part in the service ; and then 
the wasted body was borne to Westboro', 
Massachusetts, to be interred in the midst 
of the scenes of his childhood and amid the 
graves of his dear ones who had gone before. 

The sermons in this volume are upon 
Heaven. Their publication is an appropri- 
ate close to his ministry. It is as if his voice 
came back to us out of the great Silence. 
What greater revelations may have come to 
him we cannot know; but to souls that yet 
stand waiting upon the hither side of the 
unseen world these interpretations of what is 
revealed of that world will be as welcome as 
the living utterances of the young preacher 
always were. Once more the heart will tremble 
as he speaks, and the message, which seems 
to be not only of the other world but from it, 
will prove a '' savour from life unto life " to 
him who hears. 



I. 

WHAT IS HEAVEN? 



I. 

WHAT IS HEAVEN? 

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
God. — Matthew v. 8. 

\T7Hx4.T is Heaven? Whiteness of 
soul. What is Heaven ? The 
vision of God. The abiding of a pure 
and orracious God in a clean and lovino^ 
heart; that is Heaven. The essence of 
the heavenlv state is s^iven in this fami- 
liar beatitude : " Blessed are the pure in 
heart, for they shall see God." 

To see God everywhere, in nature, in 
the plan of our lives, in the movements 
of history, in the person of his Son ; to 
be so assured of his nearness that we 
never fear since he is our protector, we 
never are anxious for he provides, life is 



3^ Heaven. 

good for it is God's gift, and death has 
no terror for it takes us one step nearer 
our Lord ; in every duty of daily life to 
see and rejoice in an opportunity of ser- 
vice in God's Kingdom ; to know no dis- 
tinction of secular life and religious life, 
to view all life as life for God ; to be con- 
scious of the Celestial Presence in every 
trifle as in every crisis of our days; to 
know, to feel, to see God, here and here- 
after, now and always, is the essence of 
Heaven. It is not only happiness : it is 
the sum of all happiness. Other loves 
are the reflected rays of God's love. 
Other joys are but symbols of this one 
great joy. The central joy of Heaven is 
the seen presence of God. The consum- 
mation of salvation is that beatific vision 
in which we see as we are seen, know as 
we are known, and God is all in all. 

It is a moral perception, and, in the 
very nature of it, rests on spiritual con- 



What is Heaven ? 39 

ditions. No soul without a love of har- 
mony will enjoy Beethoven's Mass in D. 
No one indifferent to form and color will 
long pause over Raphael's Transfigura- 
tion. St. Peter's dome will awaken but 
a momentary delight in him who has no 
architectural sense. To see, there must 
be eyes to see. The very works that re- 
veal our God to one veil him from an- 
other; the very mutations of life that 
exhibit his wisdom and grace to his chil- 
dren puzzle the children of the world. 
To see the pure, we must be pure; to 
see God, we must be God-like. Not 
only is Heaven the vision of God, but 
that vision is born of God. 

Thus Heaven involves a specific, re- 
generated character. In its essential as- 
pect it is character. Where is Heaven } 
Wherever God is, and with pure heart is 
seen. Where that purity is not, Heaven 
cannot be; where it is, Heaven must in 



40 Heaven. 

substance exist. Behind all queries as 
to whether Heaven is a place or a state, 
lies this evident truth, — Heaven is char- 
acter. Primarily the question is not 
where, nor how a man is, but who he is, 
if we would know if he is or is to be in 
Heaven. Without holiness no man shall 
see God. 

In the light of these truths emerge 
some principles worth our noting. 

I. Heaven may Begin in This Life. 

The beatitude of our text does not re- 
fer solely to the far-off beatific vision 
when salvation's work is wholly com- 
pleted in the redeemed. It starts in the 
present, and roots itself in the here. God 
is now visible; purity is now possible; 
Heaven is now attainable. 

In reading the New Testament, and 
especially the parables, much perplexity 
and obscurity can be avoided by a cor- 



What is Heaven ? 41 

rect apprehension of the meaning of the 
phrases which occur over and over again: 
"the Kingdom of Heaven," " the Kingdom 
of God." Some have endeavored to dis- 
tinguish them ; some have said that they 
refer to the church ; others have said that 
they denote the government by our Lord 
after his return in glory ; still others have 
seen in them descriptions of the final 
condition when Christ's mediatorial work 
is done and he surrenders all thino^s 
again to the Father. But all these opin- 
ions are, I believe, either mechanical, 
partial, or unspiritual. The Kingdom of 
God is that kingdom in which God rules 
and is obeyed from the heart. The 
Kingdom of Heaven is that realm in 
which God is honored and obeyed by 
loyal souls just as he is honored and 
obeyed by those who, in celestial spaces, 
never cease to do his will. 

Consider the majestic sweep of the 



42 Heaven. 

conception. Here is some lonely widow, 
poor and friendless, sewing, or knitting, 
or scrubbing in her cottage, conscious of 
her Saviour's presence, seeking to per- 
form each day's duty as unto the Lord, 
and to bear each day's burden as one 
who is a pilgrim and a stranger; and 
thousfh the monarch s of earth know or 
note it not, there the eye of faith beholds 
the Kincrdom of God ! Or here is the 

o 

archano^el Michael ors^anizino- the hosts 
of God's elect above for worship or min- 
istry among the saints departed, or for 
service to tlie living heirs of salvation, 
and though we hear no clash of arms, 
nor movement of chariots, nor thunder- 
ings of clouds, nor blast of trumpets; 
though emperors, or kings, or presidents 
never give this mighty cohort a passing 
thought, yet tliere, in glory and splendor, 
radiant beyond all thrones and places of 
earthly sovereigns, is the Kingdom of 



What is Heave7t ? 43 

Heaven. The humble widow and the 
archangel are thus at one, fellow-citizens 
of God's kino^dom. Dutiful Abel offered 
the sacrifice commanded, and for his obe- 
dient faith was reckoned a citizen of this 
holy realm. Far-seeing Abraham, when 
God's voice spoke, left his native land 
not knowing whither he went, and led 
Isaac to the altar ignorant how God's 
promise was to be fulfilled, and was ac- 
counted just, and became a habitant of 
this eternal kingdom. Wherever, on 
earth, in Paradise, among men or amid 
angels, you find a created intelligence in 
which the fear of God rules, there you 
have the Kingdom of God. Whenever, 
in penitent Adam or in righteous Noah, 
in royal David or in prophetic Isaiah, 
amiong Jews or among Gentiles, before 
Christ or after Christ, in the far-away 
times of the past, or in the close, practi- 
cal, every-day era of the now, you find a 



44 Heaven. 

soul loving and obeying God, then and 
there is the Kingdom of Heaven. It is 
the most magnificent conception ever 
held by the human mind! It annihi- 
lates space, and it leaps over all time ; it 
gathers into a living and present unity 
all spirits who ever have accepted or ever 
may accept the sovereign rule of God in 
Christ. 

A good many people will see little 
Heaven hereafter if they do not begin to 
look for more of Heaven now. 

The trouble with not a few is that they 
so conceive of Heaven as distant, sepa- 
rate from present questions and duties, 
as to think tliat on death they are to take 
it all in bulk, and so they are getting 
very little of it while they live. 

We desire, and are to have, a Heaven 
hereafter. Oh, yes! But to secure it, 
we need and we must have a Heaven 
now. Are you now in Heaven .f* No? 



What is Heaven ? 45 

Then what hope have you of going to 
Heaven? Do you now see God? No? 
Then what promise have you of seeing 
him hereafter? Have you now some 
purity of heart ? No ? Then why do 
you hope to become pure even as he is 
pure ? Are you wrangling in your 
earthly home ? Then could you be har- 
monious in the home beyond the skies ? 
Are you disputatious among the saints 
on earth ? Then how will you keep the 
peace with the saints made perfect in the 
Jerusalem above ? If you want to get 
into Heaven, see to it that here and now 
you get some Heaven into you. 

2. Degrees of Life in Heaven. 

From what has been said, it is evident 
that there are degrees of life in Heaven. 
The vision we have of God will be pro- 
portionate to the purity of our souls. 
That explains why so many in the hum- 



46 Heaven. 

blest walks of life see so much more of 
God than do the wise and great of the 
world. Their hearts have not been soiled 
by the contamination of ambition and 
selfishness and display. The lenses of 
the soul are clearer and God can be 
better seen. 

It is a traditional notion that death 
ushers even the merest babe in Christ, 
or the stingy believer, or the worldly 
communicant, straight into the heavenly 
bliss and glory. It is thought that when 
tlie earthly life ends, the consummated 
heavenly life begins. For one I can 
find in Scripture no trace of support for 
such a thouglit. I have vainly searched 
the works of our theologians for conclu- 
sive or weighty evidence of such a view. 
The analogies of life do not favor it, nor 
are the fruits which it produces in daily 
conduct an ar2:ument for it. What is 
commonly thought of as '' Heaven " does 



What is Heaven ? 47 

not be2:in till our Lord comes ao-ain in 
glory when we shall receive our resur- 
rection bodies, and shall obtain the salva- 
tion ready to be completed in the last 
day. Prior to that, in this world and in 
the next, the Kingdom of Heaven is a 
process. 

A company of Christian people as- 
semble for a common purpose, and each 
often has a foretaste of Heaven, but all 
are in various stages of Christian char- 
acter and of heavenly grace. There is 
no reason nor Scripture for supposing 
that death works such a change that we 
are all by it reduced to a common level, 
be it high or low. 

That to die is gain the Christian be- 
liever knows. That in Paradise, or be- 
tween death and the second Advent, the 
believer comes into closer relations with 
his Lord, and so into added felicity, is 
indisputable. But the old teaching of 



48 Heaven. 

death and immediate glory is as truly 
without foundation as respects the be- 
liever, as it is without foundation in re- 
spect to the unforgiven sinner. There is 
abundant reason to believe that we enter 
the otlier world much as we leave this 
world. If we have been penurious, self- 
ish, over-thrifty, unduly careful of the 
interests of self, we need not tliink that 
by a process of magic when the spirit 
leaves the body we are to become singu- 
larly generous, unselfish, and Christlike. 
We are, thank God, if truly the children 
of God, to become ultimately as our 
Lord, but it will not be, here or any- 
where, by some easy-going, hocus-pocus 
process, but by the patient trial and dis- 
cipHne of our faith and love. Some dis- 
ciples of Jesus are fanning into a glowing 
flame the fire kindled of God in their 
hearts. Some are intermittent, spas- 
modic, erratic in the performance of their 



What is Heaven ? 49 

Christian duties. Some are forgetting 
to pray, some have for months left their 
Bibles unread. Some are doing nothing 
to make others happy. Somehow before 
these are fit for Heaven, there must be 
more Heaven fitted into them. 

O beloved, what are you doing to 
get more Heaven into your present 
life ? What are you doing to give more 
Heaven to the forsaken, the poor, the 
aged, the tempted, the wandering, the 
sick, the hopeless, the lost ? Did you 
ever think how much work must be done 
in our hearts and lives before we are fit 
to enter the final Heaven, and enjoy the 
beatific vision and be as pure as Christ ? 

And though in the last and finished 
state of heavenly glory we shall be alto- 
gether free from sin, altogether pure, we 
shall not all be alike, w^e shall not have 
ceased to grow. No painter yet has 
been able to portray the face of Christ. 



50 Heaven. 

Its riches of grace, tenderness, and holi- 
ness are untraceable. And so it will be 
in the final glory. God is infinite, grace 
is boundless, creation has no discovered 
limits; there will in that Heaven be so 
much to learn, to think, to feel, to love, 
to discover, to achieve, to be — the infin- 
ite operations and attributes of an infinite 
God to investigate — that we can never 
stop. Across the boundless ocean of di- 
vine mercy will come the refrain, sung 
by angels and saints redeemed, " No 
shore ; no shore ! " 

3. No Limit to the Satisfactions of 
Heaven. 

I have already anticipated my closing 
thought. There is no limit to the satis- 
factions of Heaven. That is just as true 
in this life, as after this life. Jesus said 
to the woman at the well, " He that 
drinketh of the water that I shall give 



What is Heaven ? 5 ^ 

him shall never thirst." That is, " In 
me and in the new life which I give he 
shall have a perennial source of inward 
supply for all his heart's desires." 

We tire of earthly scenes. To most 
men it is a disappointment to go back, 
after many years, to one's early home. 
The many changes awaken pain. Ordi- 
nary books cease to inspire us as at first 
they did. We crave new scenes, friends, 
ideas, work. Immortality is the natural 
crown of present life. But even that 
must be progressive. I rejoice that in 
Heaven there is to be no end of supply 
for every true soul want. 

You know perhaps how it is in music. 
You learn a phrase of two or three notes. 
You discover how it is wrought into a 
prolonged melody. Then some one tells 
you how by fixed laws its corresponding 
parts are worked out, and thus a true 
harmony is produced. Step by step as 



5 2 Heaven. 

your musical culture progresses you see 
a sonata, a symphony, a mass, an orato- 
rio, with all its variety in unity wrought 
out into a perfect whole. And perhaps 
at last you have mastered the analysis of 
one of Bach's great fugues. You see 
theme chasing theme, harmony inter- 
blending with harmony, the utmost seem- 
ing disorder fused into the utmost real 
order, an almost infinitely intricate mass 
of detail blended into a perfect and intel- 
ligible unity, and you stand amazed that 
that little theme of perhaps but three 
notes could by an orderly and describable 
law of development yield that triumphant 
organ peean. It is to be thus, I judge, 
in our \ision of God. We do see him 
here, if by his grace his Spirit is within 
us to cleanse, so that with tlic Spirit's 
eye, as it were, we look out on nature 
and life. But how little of him we be- 
hold ! An old divine said that as we ate 



What is Heaven? 53 

we should thank God for tlie manna that 
came down from heaven; as we drank 
we should remember the precious water 
of life ; and as we walked we should be 
reminded of the walk worthy of the gos- 
pel. In silver and gold is the contrast 
to the precious blood w^hereby our re- 
demption was purchased. In the moun- 
tains is God's throne ; in the skies God s 
chariot; in the lightnings God's arrows; 
in the thunders his voice. There is no 
circumstance, nor scene, nor experience 
which does not correspond with some 
work or power or attribute of God. 

As the heart grows purer, and vision 
grows clearer, how increased on every 
hand are the signs of the divine pres- 
ence, — until all the varied experiences 
through which we pass, all the count- 
less phenomena on which we gaze, are 
but the combinations of two themes, 
"God is Love," "God is Li^ht," which 



54 Heaven. 

unite again in that single note, God is 
Father. 

Thus I have sous^ht to show that 
Heaven is more than endless felicity 
after death. It is God in the soul here, 
now, and forever. What is Heaven .f* It 
is holiness. What is Heaven t It is to 
see God. The vision of a holy God by a 
holy soul, that is Heaven. 

He who is brousfht into livino: union 
with God now will have no fear for the 
future. He will have no concern about 
death. It can only take him nearer to 
him who even here is his life and joy. 

Then let our souls, on wings sublime, 
Rise from the vanities of time, 
Draw back the parting veil and see 
The glories of eternity. 

Shall aught beguile us on the road, 
While we are travelling back to God? 
For strangers into life we come, 
And dying is but going home. 



What is Heaven ? 55 

To dwell with God, to feel his love, 
Is the full Heaven enjoyed above ; 
And the sweet expectation now 
Is the young dawn of Heaven below. 



II. 

RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 



II. 

RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 

Love never faileth. — i Cor. xiii. 8. 

T^HE apostle is looking forward, and in 
the light of eternity is estimating the 
gifts and graces of the church. Gifts, such 
as prophecies, tongues, miracles, and all 
the varied equipment by which the king- 
dom of God is extended on earth, shall 
pass away. There will be no need of them 
when they have done their work. The 
staging can be taken down when the fresco 
is done. But graces will never pass away. 
Faith, hope, love, these are to abide. And 
with particular emphasis may it be said 
of that grace which is the crown of all 
graces in God's kingdom, — " Love never 
faileth." 



6o Heaven. 

In this truth is involved the answer to 
a question nowhere directly answered in 
Scripture, but ever prominent in Christian 
thouQ-ht : " Shall we recoonize loved ones 
in Heaven?" There are problems which 
logic or philosophy cannot solve, but which 
affection practically settles. I believe that 
there are specific intimations in Revelation 
which give us rational grounds for hoping 
to meet in a future life our loved ones who 
have fallen asleep in the Lord. But even 
did no such detailed intimations exist, I 
should feel justified in cherishing such a 
hope on the basis of a declaration such 
as our text contains. The instincts and 
behests of love are the deepest of our 
nature. None cry out so loudly for 
satisfaction, none crowd so closely upon 
David's inspired words : " I shall be sat- 
isfied when I awake with thy likeness." 
Given affinity, and, by a law of life, if 
energy endures, after sufficient mutation, 



Recognition in Heaven. 6i 

there will be relationship. The moral 
and spiritual world as truly tends to 
equilibrium as does the material and psy- 
chical world. 

It is to be noted just what Paul means 
by " love." It is not animal desire, mere 
fancy, nor liking. It is not domestic fond- 
ness, that sweet manifestation of affection, 
which, pure and holy as it is when trans- 
figured by Christian faith, is yet in great 
degree grounded in our present earthly 
and bodily conditions. It is a strict spir- 
itual affinity. It is an attachment based 
on character, actual or latent. It is a loy- 
alty to God or Christ, growing out of the 
perceived glory of the divine nature. Or 
it is a self-giving movement of one soul 
toward another soul or other souls, awak- 
ened by the recognition of moral and 
spiritual worth. Only on such a basis as 
this have we any reason to expect recog- 
nition in Heaven. For it is character, 



62 Heaven. 

and all that It involves in Christ, that is 
the essential content of Heaven. 

Emerson has thrown more light on the 
higher and lower, as well as the progressive 
manifestations of " love," than any unin- 
spired writer I recall. Read his essay, 
" Love," and verify my statement. With 
that charm of word and thought so pecu- 
liar to himself he takes us alons: from the 
fancies and passions of early years into 
the slowly ripening affections of the spirit, 
and shows us how as the first disappear, 
the others abide, and love, — celestial, 
holy, spiritual, out-going, self-giving. God- 
like "love never faileth." 

There is nothing more beautiful to me 
than a young man and young woman just 
starting out on tlie untried pathway of 
a married life. If Christ be In that new 
home, its law and life, I know not where 
to turn, as the years go on, for sweeter 
glimpses and foretastes of Heaven. Some 



Recognition in Heaven. 63 

mountebank comes to town and advertises 
to tell married people how to get along 
without quarrelling. You do not need to 
pay the charlatan a dollar to learn that, 
precious beyond gold as the knowledge is. 
You may know without a fee. Get a right 
view of the highest ends of marriage. Fix 
it in your mind that by God's law and by 
your marriage vow you are bound to each 
other, until death shall part. Your wife, 
O man, is not merely to mend your clothes, 
cook your victuals, keep your house, rear 
your children ! Your husband, O woman, 
is not merely to give you protection, fur- 
nish home, give support, or indulge your 
tastes. You are of twain made one, that 
you may be one. There is perfect truth 
in Tennyson's lines: — 

" Yet in the long years liker must they grow ; 
The man be more of woman, she of man ; 
He gain in sweetness and in moral height ; 



64 Heaven, 

" She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, 
Nor lose the childhke in the larger mind, 
Till at the last she set herself to man, 
Like perfect music unto noble words." 

In a true Christian marriaofe there is 
a growing respect for each companion, a 
o^rowing: recosfnition of the hioher ends 
of marriage, and an increasing percep- 
tion how all its ministries may serve to 
strengthen these great spiritual ends. 
There is no school for character like the 
Christian family. And the one key to 
domestic harmony is this : " In love be 
tenderly affectioned one to another, in 
honor preferring one another." 

Next to the affections of the home are 
the affections that are born and developed 
in the church. In a happy Christian fam- 
ily, serving one another " in the Lord," 
we get tlie sweetest foretastes of Heaven. 
But in the church we gain new glimpses, 
and glimpses that mere kinship cannot 



Recognition in Heaven. 65 

yield. In the church we are met purely 
on a spiritual basis. Although social 
forces and intellectual forces modify 
church development, they do not start nor 
sustain churches. Churches never should 
be clubs. They are brotherhoods. Their 
fellowship is born of a common love to the 
Master. Now this Christian and church 
union is an awakener of some of our holi- 
est and most enduring joys. Some per- 
sons affect to despise a prayer-meeting. 
There is often something said or done by 
some humble soul to jar their refined lit- 
erary sensibilities ! Well, what of it, if 
speech and prayer and song be gen- 
uine, out of a Christ-loving heart ? To me 
it is sweeter than the cold formalities of 
a dinner-party. When I see Christians 
sharing each other's joys, bearing each 
other's burdens, touched by a holy flame 
of love divine, one in Christ, I see Heaven 

already here. Have you not won soul 

5 



66 Heaven. 

purity, have you not seen God, have you 
not been in Heaven and had Heaven 
in you at the simple service of the 
Supper and Communion of our Blessed 
Lord ? 

Then again we come to be very intimate 
with people whom we never saw. I feel 
very well acquainted with Plato. Years 
since I pored over his dialogues till the 
ideals he paints became part of my very 
beingr. David is a man whom of late vears 
I have studied, and loved with a srreat 
affection. I know Paul fairly well, and 
before I die I hope to know him much 
better. I love Augustine and Luther, 
Bunyan and Wesley and Edwards, New- 
man and Muhlenberg, Longfellow and 
Tennyson, Lowell and Whittier. Were 
any of these great and good men within 
my reach this week I would seek to visit 
him, not out of idle curiositv. not to sfratifv 
vanity, but because each of these, as many 



Rccog7iition in Heaven. 67 

other kindred souls, are my friends and 
benefactors. I wrote a letter once to each 
of mv two crreatest teachers, tellino- them 
what their instructions and, above all, their 
examples had been to me for many years. 
I would like to tell — if I ever have a 
chance I will tell, for common gratitude 
demands it — some or all of these great 
ones gone whom I have just named, what 
is in my heart toward them. Now can it 
be possible that I am never to have that 
chance ? Has such an opportunity been 
the dream of the ages before Christ, of 
the wise men apart from Christ, and of all 
the flocks of the one great fold of Christ, 
and is it yet but a will-o'-the-wisp ? 

There are sainted pastors, teachers, and 
brethren, living and dead, in the church 
of God, from whom you have learned the 
deeper things of God's word, or the sweeter 
delights of Christian service, or the sub- 
limer aspirations of divine worship. You 



68 Heaven. 

admire them. You love them. Your 
souls are knit together, not by the ties of 
mere earthly companionship, not by the 
attractions of mere kin or taste. They 
are knit together by Christ. Through 
their help, you have seen Christ. May 
3^ou be sure that you are to see him 
at last, face to face, and yet are you to 
doubt if ever again you shall meet them, 
and commune with them } 

There are dear ones to whom you have 
been related by ties of family and kin. 
They died in the serene hope of immor- 
tality, never doubting Christ's love and 
care. To one you owe perchance your 
first thoughts of entering your present 
vocation, and the blessings that godly 
prayers brought down from Heaven as 
the years progressed. He gave you many 
of your best ideals of Christian manhood. 
He loved you not merely as a son in the 
flesh, but, oh, vastly more, as a child of 



Recognition in Heaven. 69 



God. To another you owe any Christian 
sympathy you may ever have with the 
needy, the troubled, the poor, the sick. 
At her knees you learned, as a little child, 
to look on all men as created by one Father, 
redeemed by one Saviour, worthy of un- 
varying service. Such self-denial through 
long, long years that those she loved might 
be — famous, or great or prosperous? — 
no ! but useful in God's kingdom, you 
never saw surpassed. Of others you dare 
not speak. Only eternity can reveal what 
you learned from them. As years passed, 
and joys came and sorrows chased them 
fast, and personal ambitions vanished, and 
God's better plans unfolded, by divine 
grace you saw characters ripen, till as in 
a mirror was reflected the face of your 
Lord. 

I do not expect the restoration of fam- 
ilies, as such, in Heaven. The family sys- 
tem, as we here know it, will there, as Jesus 



JO Heaven. 

plainly tells, be done away. They do not 
die, they are not born, in Heaven. They 
neither marry nor are given in marriage 
there. But to doubt that sons will meet 
fathers, and mothers will meet daughters, 
and husbands will meet wives, and brothers 
will meet sisters, when on earth their ten- 
derest love has been " in the Lord," is, I 
think, to suspect that faith, hope, and love 
are not to abide, that love is to fail, that 
we arc not to be satisfied. As one pro- 
found theologian says : " Love itself, the 
crowning grace of tlie future as of the 
present life, will be the ceaseless torment 
of the holy, if they are never to meet and 
to know those whom they love. So cruel 
and so preposterous would such a disap- 
pointment be, that our eager affections 
furnish the answer to their own question." 
As says Emerson, " We need not fear that 
we can lose anything by the progress of 
the soul. The soul may be trusted to the 



Recognition in Heaven. 7^ 

end. That which is so beautiful and 
attractive as these relations must be suc- 
ceeded and supplanted only by what is 
more beautiful, and so on for ever." As 
says inspired David : " I shall be satisfied, 
when I awake, with thy likeness." As 
says the apostle Paul, " Love never fail- 
eth." As says our infallible Lord, " Let 
not your hearts be troubled. . . . Where 
I am ye shall be also," — yes, with him 
and with one another. 

There are numerous direct intimations 
of Scripture which greatly strengthen the 
conviction which I have expressed. An- 
cient worthies are said to be " gathered 
unto their fathers," and that a social rela- 
tion in the other world is meant seems sure, 
as in several cases the reference cannot be 
to a common burial-place. It seems as if 
David cherished such a hope, when he 
said of his dead child : " I shall go to him, 
but he shall not return to me." It was 



7 2 Heaven. 

in form obscure, it may be, yet none the 
less real, a fairly common hope of the pious 
in our Lord's time. It seems involved in 
all Jesus' accounts of future glory. His 
parables, his prayers, his exhortations, 
imply that Heaven is a social state. His 
disciples are to see him in unclouded glory ; 
but their society is not to be exclusively 
with him. They are to be together ; they 
are to mingle with Abraham, Isaac, and 
David. This world may be vastly inferior 
to the heavenly world in Jesus' estimate ; 
but it is not wholly separate from it. The 
two worlds are linked together. Angels 
rejoice when sinners repent. Guardian 
spirits watch over Christ's humblest dis- 
ciples. Lazarus shares with Abraham a 
common banquet. Wealth may so be 
used as to make friends who shall wel- 
come us into eternal tabernacles. In our 
Father's house are many abiding-places. 
Where our Lord is his disciples are to be, 



Recognition in Heaven. ']'^ 

with him and with one another. All that 
is pure and noble and spiritual on earth 
is to be eternal in Heaven. Nor does it 
seem possible to read the story of the 
Transfiguration, in which Jesus, a man 
in the flesh, Moses a disembodied spirit, 
and Elijah who had been caught up into 
Heaven, converse in free speech of earthly- 
events, are recognized by the three disci- 
ples, and typify " the communion of the 
saints," without overpowering convictions 
such as I have expressed. That there 
will be such recognitions in Paradise, ere 
we receive our resurrection bodies, is alto- 
gether probable by the law of soul affinity. 
That when we have our glorious resurrec- 
tion bodies, perfect mirrors of our redeemed 
and holy spirits, we shall shine forth for 
what we are to those who have loved us, 
and shall be discerned with utter ease by 
those who wish to see us, is even more 
credible. 



74 Heaven. 

Perhaps it is well that Scripture does 
not speak more directly than it does on 
this theme. It is well for us not to be 
much occupied with it. It is well that we 
know but in part. It is sometimes neces- 
sary to draw our attention utterly away 
from those we know and love, in order to 
fix our minds on eternal truths and duties, 
and to turn our affections toward the 
supreme God. But that there is enough 
of proof of recognition in Heaven to fill 
with well-grounded hope a believing soul, 
I firmly believe. It must be remembered 
that the life of the affections, the raptures 
of holy love, cannot be stated or proved 
in the terms of a mathematical formula. 
The kingdom of God is to be measured 
by no Rule of Three. The purest, holiest 
Christian consciousness affirms and 
demands recosfnition of believinor loved 
ones hereafter, and that consciousness is 
begotten by the essential principles of the 



Recognition in Heaven, 75 

gospel, and is sustained by varied intima- 
tions of God's word. 

Here then we are content to leave our 
hope, knowing to whom we have com- 
mitted our souls, and awaiting the revela- 
tions of that great and better day, when 
we shall see as we are seen and know as 
we are known. 

The belief which I have depicted is a 
very sweet and joyous one to the soul that 
is personally loyal to Jesus Christ. But 
it is a hope which no one else is justified in 
entertaining. I may be speaking to some 
son, or daughter, whose parent not long 
asfo left this world and entered on a hio^her 
and eternal service. You loved that parent, 
and you love him still. He was a Chris- 
tian such as you admire, and his influence 
even now almost constrains you to become 
a child of God. Would n't you like to see 
that mother again '^. Would n't you like 
to hear her speak of her blessed Lord 



76 Heaven. 

whom you as yet have refused ? Would n't 
vou like to see somethino: of her all 
through eternity? Will it not be an end- 
less pain always to be separated from 
her ? But separated thus from our be- 
lieving loved ones we must be, if we do 
not ally ourselves to their King, and 
march to glory beneath the banner of 
their Saviour. 

Yes, we desire to know these dear ones, 
— father, mother, brother, sister, child, 
wife, husband — in the life and world 
which are to follow this. I pray God we 
may. If we fulfil God's conditions, I 
believe we shall. " This is the work of 
God that ye believe on him whom he hath 
sent." That is the adamantine condition 
of knowinof as^ain the sainted ones s^one 
on to God. Have you fulfilled that 
condition .-^ 

O unconverted husband, will you sepa- 
rate yourself forever from your believing 



Recog7iition in Heaven. J J 

wife ? O unbelieving father, will you take 
another path from that of your believing 
child ? O Christless child, will you refuse 
to follow in the footsteps of a Christ-loving 
parent ? 



III. 

IS HEAVEN A PLACE? 



III. 

IS HEAVEN A PLACE? 

I go to prepare a place for you. — John xiv. 2. 

TTEAVEN Is primarily a character, — 
a pure heart seeing God. But is 
Heaven also a place '^. Our Lord might 
be thought in these words plainly to say 
" Yes," if we are always to insist on a 
strictly literal interpretation of his lan- 
guage. A careful examination of the 
context, however, will excite a strong 
doubt as to whether he designs in this 
language to convey any positive infor- 
mation touching the locality of Heaven. 
Yet his words do raise the question ; 
possibly they answer it. They may suit- 
ably introduce a consideration of the 

6 



82 Heave7i. 

inquiry which has interested many, and 
which will occupy our thought this 
morning. 

If you ask a child, Where is Heaven ? 
he will point toward the sky. He would 
do this at the North Pole, or the South; 
at New Orleans, or Calcutta; at Cape 
Town, or the Alaskan Peninsula ; at 
twelve o'clock, mid-day, or twelve o'clock, 
mid-night. To the child, and to those 
who still think as the child, Heaven 
seems thus to be localized very definitely. 
But a moment's reflection shows that 
every point of space and matter by which 
this world is surrounded, the whole extra- 
mundane universe of God, is by such a 
method of designation included in the 
locality of Heaven. 

Hence many, by way of reaction from 
childhood's fancy, deny that Heaven is 
local, and afflrm that it is purely spiritual, 
a character and a character only, and not 



Is Heaven a Place? 8.^ 



o 



a place as well. And yet the child, all 
unwittingly, may be right after all. 

The question is more or less specu- 
lative, and of relative unimportance, yet 
allied to it are themes on which Scrip- 
ture speaks with positiveness, and the 
mention of these may lead to a larger 
profit than the inquiry proper might 
promote. 

I. The experiences of Enoch and Eli- 
jah suggest that Heaven is a place. 
These ancient worthies did not die, after 
the usual manner of men. Of Enoch 
the account in Genesis says : " And 
Enoch was not, for God took him." Of 
Elijah we read in Kings ( 2 Kings, ii. 
11): " And Elijah went up by a whirlwind 
into Heaven." I cannot regard these 
narratives as mythical, or as merely 
poetic descriptions of sudden disappear- 
ances. They are meant to be historic. 
They were so understood by the genera- 



84 Heaven. 

tions before our Lord. The clear refer- 
ences to other equally extraordinary 
events of olden time show that they were 
understood as historic by Jesus himself. 
Of Enoch the Epistle to the Hebrews 
says : " Enoch was translated that he 
should not see death ; and he w^as not 
found, because God translated him." It 
was as one who had been caught up into 
Heaven, whose body had become spir- 
itual and glorified, that Elijah appeared 
on the }^Iount of Transfisfuration. The 
bodies of these translated saints of God 
may have been, indeed they must have 
been clianged ; but they were not anni- 
hilated, they were not resolved into their 
elements of corruption. They endure, 
first-fruits of that universal sflorification 
in which all Christ's disciples shall be 
clothed with their immortal bodies. It 
seems natural to believe, therefore, that 
Enoch and Elijah are not only in a 



Is Heaven a Place ? 85 

heavenly state of inward bliss, but also 
in a heavenly place of special glory. 

II. The impression thus created is 
greatly strengthened by the narrative of 
the Ascension of our Lord. Some fairly 
evangelical critics have questioned the 
credibility of this account. But it is 
warp and woof of the Gospel narrative. 
It was prophesied by Jesus himself, and is 
often referred to in apostolic discourses 
and epistles. It is the logical and nat- 
ural consummation of the Resurrection. 
In " the rosy dawn of a beautiful spring 
morning," Jesus gathers his chosen ones 
in the streets of Jerusalem. Out through 
the same gate by which he went from the 
paschal supper to Gethsemane ; up the 
same hill that had been moistened by his 
bloody sweat ; past the same tomb 
whence he had called forth the sleeping 
Lazarus, he steps to Olivet's brow. Not 
as Enoch, unwitnessed and unheralded, 



86 Heaven. 

save in a single ancient line, is he to 
leave the world. Not as Elijah, " stern, 
awful old man," whose resting place was 
" the eyrie of the mountain-bird," about 
whose path "the fierce forest-winds 
howled, and the lamp of whose feet was 
the jagged lightning," who, when his 
conflicts ceased, was fitly rapt away in a 
whirlwind, and borne aloft in a chariot of 
fire, — not thus was our Redeemer to rise 
to Heaven. His life had been gentle, 
"by the beautiful lake, and on the vine- 
clad hills, amid blooming valleys and re- 
joicing birds." And so he lifts up his 
hands and blesses his disciples ; and as 
he speaks, the morning cloud parts, he 
rises and passes from their sight, and 
these hands still outstretched in blessing 
disappear. 

" Thus calmly, slowly did he rise 
Into his native skies, 
His human form dissolved on high 
In his own radiancy." 



/s Heaven a Place ? ^'] 

He rose to Heaven, we say. Where 
Heaven is we may not know ; but that 
it has locality seems to be involved in 
the Ascension story. It w^as our LorcUs 
whole person that ascended, — body, soul, 
and spirit. It was a visible ascension. 
The disciples saw it. The glorified, or 
glory-taking body of the God-man grad- 
ually rose from the earth, and went up, 
until a cloud hid him from view. This 
was a local transfer of our Lord's person 
from one place to another, from earth to 
Heaven. Where Heaven is, we are not, 
it may be, told; but our Lord's body is 
either nowhere, everywhere, or some- 
where, and where he is, there is Heaven, 
in the distinctive sense. " It would seem 
to be the doctrine of Scripture that 
Heaven — the final abode of bliss, the 
Father's house of many abiding places 
— is a definite portion of space where 
God specially manifests his presence. 



8S Heaven. 

and where he is surrounded by his 
angels, and by the spirits of the just 
made perfect." 

III. The character of the resurrec- 
tion-body seems to imply the locality of 
Heaven. There is very much that no 
one does, nor yet can understand about 
the body with whicli we are to be raised. 
There have been gross, and also ethereal 
misconceptions of so much as Scripture 
does reveal. But that the dead in 
Christ are to rise a2:ain is a structural 
doctrine of Christ and his apostles. Nor 
is this teaching any declaration of a 
merely spiritual revival, wherein the soul 
takes to itself, as in conversion, new life, 
purposes, and hopes. Nor again is it 
the mere assurance of immortality, — that 
in and throuorh and after what we call 
death, the soul lives on in eternal blessed- 
ness. Such views as these will not fill 
out the outline of apostolic teaching 
such as is found in i Cor. xv. 



Is Heaven a Place ? 89 

When our Lord comes again — as come 
he will, in like manner as he was seen 
going into Heaven — he will come clothed 
in that glorious body which he took with 
him into Heaven, and which in Heaven 
he still retains. Upon all his faithful 
disciples he will confer the blessed boon 
of a new, a resurrection, an immortal, a 
spiritual body. It will not be like this 
body, — flesh and blood, and subject to 
corruption, — though in some unrevealed 
w^ay it is to grow out of it. It will be, as 
Paul says, a " spiritual body." 

A great many people read that phrase, 
and immediately they say, " Why, that 
means a body made out of spirit." And 
so they try to imagine some ethereal, un- 
substantial, indefinite somewhat, as being 
that " building from God, a house not 
made with hands, eternal in the Heav- 
ens " into which, when this earthly house 
of our bodily frame, this body of death, 



QO Heavert, 

the body of our humiliation, shall be dis- 
solved, we are to rise, and in which we, 
fashioned anew, conformed to the body 
of Christ's glory, are forever to dwell. 

Nothing, however, could be farther 
from the apostle's thought than this. 
By a spiritual body he does not mean a 
body consisting of spirit. That would be 
nonsense, a flat contradiction in terms, 
an absolutely impossible reality, and an 
absolutely inconceivable idea. Spirit and 
matter are, in all our experience, and in 
all our thought, opposites. We can first 
understand Paul's meaning, when we un- 
derstand his division of human nature. 
For popular, if not scientific purposes, he 
divides man into three parts. First there 
is his body, material, sensuous, corrupti- 
ble. Next there is his soul, the principle 
of life, which controls his body, kindred to 
the life of the brutes that perish. Finally, 
there is the spirit, the intellectual and 



Is Heaven a Place ? 91 

rational nature, wherewith we apprehend 
and trust God, — our godlike and immor- 
tal part. 

Now the body in which we now live is 
indeed to some extent an organ of the 
spirit. Our fleshly and corruptible brain 
in some mysterious w^ay is correlated with 
all our highest spiritual exercises. But it 
is an imperfect organ of our spirit. It 
wearies, it grows old, it decays, it dies. 
Our present body is distinctively an 
organ of our lower, or animal part. It is 
perfectly adapted to the life of the souL 

Paul says " it shall be raised a spiritual 
body," that is, a body adapted to all the 
needs of the rational, religious, immortal, 
God-like spirit, the Gr ^tk pneuma. And, 
to confirm his prophecy, he then uses this 
contrast : " There is a natural body, there 
is a spiritual body." By " natural body " 
is meant, as the original Greek plainly 
shows, a body adapted to the present 



92 Heaven. 

order of animal life, a body fitted to the 
needs of the lower nature, which may be 
desio^nated the soul, or which in Greek is 
called the psiichc. The psiic/ie, or soul, is 
the lower, present, temporary principle 
of animal life, the seat of all fleshly ap- 
petites, passions, pains, and sufferings. 
There is a body adapted to it, this pres- 
ent natural body, — a psychical body. 
T\\(z pneuma, or spirit, on the contrary, is 
the higher, rational, eternal, heaven-born 
seat of eternal life, the home of faith, and 
hope, and love, and joy, long-suffering, 
and peace. There is a body adapted to it, 
— that house not made with hands, from 
God ; that fadeless, immortal vesture, 
with which our glorious Lord shall clothe 
us, when he comes again, — a pneumatic 
body. There is a natural, soul-adapted, 
psychical body ; there is also a spiritual, 
spirit-adapted, pneumatic body. The one 
is corruptible, the other is incorruptible; 



Is Heaven a Place ? 93 

the one is the servant of dishonor, the 
other is the minister of glory ; the one 
weakens and dies, the other never tires 
nor subsides ; the one is animal, " nat- 
ural," psychic ; the other is " spiritual," 
supernatural, pneumatic ; the one is for 
this temporary dispensation of decay, the 
other is for the eternal economy of heav- 
enly glory. 

But, let it be held fast, the body for 
the spirit, our resurrection body is to be 
a body. It is to be material. It consists 
of matter. How its particles are to be or- 
ganized we do not know. Of all the laws 
that shall govern its operations, we are 
not informed ; but that such bodies must 
have locality is a necessity of thought. 
They cannot be everywhere at once. The 
Heaven of the risen and immortal saints 
of God must, at any given moment, be 
at some definite point, where with their 
spirit-serving bodies they may be. 



94 Heaven, 

IV. It needs, however, to be noted, 
that the Bible nowhere tells us where 
Heaven is. Pious men have let fancy 
picture Heaven and the sphere of its 
locality. Some ancients placed it in the 
moon. Others fixed it in the clouds, or 
in the upper air where the Northern 
Lights play. Isaac Taylor argues with 
no little force and ingenuity that the sun 
may be the Heaven of our planetary sys- 
tem, a globe of immortal blessedness and 
glory. But all these representations are 
but pure fancies, without basis of Scrip- 
ture or reason. 

A more plausible theory has urged that 
this earth is to be the local seat of 
Heaven. Peter predicts a day, when the 
heavens shall pass away, and the ele- 
ments shall be dissolved with fervent 
heat, and the earth and the works that 
are therein shall be burned; as an out- 
come of which we may look for new 



Is Heaven a Place ? 95 

heavens and a new earth, wherein dwell- 
eth righteousness. I have heard men 
gravely contend that this language is to 
be understood literally, and proceed to 
show that Peter was but anticipating the 
dictum of modern science, which declares 
that in some far-off aeon this world will 
fall into the sun, and be destroyed, and 
that then a fresh globe will spring forth, 
to pass through all the varied history of 
the countless planets already existing. 
Perhaps Peter may have wished to be 
understood literally ; but, if so, there is 
but dim likeness between his prophecies 
and those of our modern evolution savans. 
But I have no idea that Peter, or John in 
similar visions, is to be understood liter- 
ally. They borrow from the language of 
Jesus, even as he in turn borrowed from 
the language of the ancient prophets. 
When Isaiah or Malachi would tell of 
some great moral and spiritual reforma- 



96 Heaven, 

tion which Israel was to witness, — some 
coming of the Lord in judgment and 
glory, — as in the Babylonian captivity, 
or in the Great Restoration, no language 
is too bold, no figures of speech too 
dramatic, no possible imagination too 
vivid for their use. They see the moon 
as red as blood ; tliey behold the sun 
blotted from the skies ; they witness the 
whole firmament dropping from its foun- 
dations, and all tlie starry hosts falHng 
into universal chaos; they see the earth 
consumed by fire, and the eternally holy 
Jehovah casting the carcasses of the 
wicked into pits of quenchless flames. 
There are clouds, and trumpet blasts, and 
assemblinof ano^els. There are volcanic 
eruptions, and earthquakes, and great in- 
undations. The whole order of material 
nature is drawn upon for illustration of 
these sublime truths, overwhelming judg- 
ments, and supreme duties with which 



Is Heaven a Place? 97 

holy prophets, inspired of Heaven, desire 
to impress their fellows. They are no 
more to be interpreted literally than Mil- 
ton and Dante, in their sublime visions, 
are to be taken literally. 

I cannot judge, therefore, that we have 
sufficient authority for pronouncing this 
earth as destined to be the final seat of 
Heaven. That man is to grow steadily 
better, that society is to be redeemed, 
that spiritually we are to have new 
heavens and a new earth, where dwelleth 
righteousness, I fully believe. But that 
is to result from the progress of mankind 
under the gospel, as a part of the present 
dispensation of the Holy Spirit. It has, 
I take it, no reference to the final state or 
place of the redeemed, when the present 
dispensation is closed. 

V. In fact the impression which the 
Scriptures make is that Heaven is to be 
many-sided, various in its employments, 

7 



98 Heaven, 

joys, and localities. There may be some 
central point in this vast universe where 
God in Christ is manifested in special 
glory. But he is not manifested there 
only. The whole universe is his, and the 
whole universe, we may imagine, is to be 
ours. Wliat signifies this vast creation, 
if it is to charm and incite us for but a 
few short years 1 It spreads itself out 
in an extent that staggers imagination. 
" There are stars so distant from us that 
it would take their light, travelling at a 
rate of nearly twelve million miles a min- 
ute, thirty million years to reach us. Our 
earth is a hundred million miles from 
the sun, whose diameter is so monstrous 
that a hundred such orbs as ours strung 
in a straio-lit line across his disk would 
scarcely occupy the whole distance. The 
sun, with all his attendant planets and 
moons, is sweeping around his own cen- 
tre at the rate of four thousand miles a 



i 



Is Heaven a Place? 99 

day; and it would take him eighteen 
million years to complete one revolution. 
Our firmamental cluster contains more 
than twenty million stars. But there are 
many thousands of such nebulae visible, 
some of them capable of packing away in 
their awful bosoms hundreds of thousands 
of our galaxies. Measure off the abysmal 
space into seven hundred thousand stages 
each a hundred million miles wide, and 
you reach the nearest fixed stars, — for 
instance, the constellation of the Lyre. 
Multiply that inconceivable distance by 
hundreds of thousands, and still you will 
discern enormous banks of stars obscurely 
glittering on the farthest verge of tele- 
scopic vision. And even all this is but 
a little corner of the whole." 

Can it be possible that when God has 
consummated his redemptive plan he is 
to shut up his Incarnate Son, his re- 
deemed and glorified children, his spot- 



ICO Heaven, 

less and radiant angels, all the denizens 
of Heaven, to any one part of this great 
and infinite universe which he has made 
and in such crlorv sustains ? What does 
Paul mean, when he says, " Creation it- 
self shall be delivered from the bondage 
of corruption into the liberty of the glory 
of the children of God " ? For what con- 
summation is " the whole creation oroan- 

o 

ing and travailing in pain together until 
now " ? Have we measured the si2:nifi- 
cance of the promise that in Christ all 
things, things in the heaven and things 
in the earth, the totaHty of the universe, 
spiritual and material, is to be summed 
up in one ? Have we grasped the mean- 
ing of the language : " All things are 
yours, . . . the world, or life, or death, or 
things present, or things to come ; all are 
yours " ? It would rather seem, from such 
words as these, as if the range of the 
abode and destinv of those who die in the 



Is Heaven a Place? loi 

Lord were ultimately to be all immensity • 
Is Heaven local ? Yes ; it is not to be 
severed from material environments, and 
material bodily conditions. But is Heaven 
but one sequestered and finite locality ? 
No. To be in Heaven is to have the 
freedom of God's universe. The child's 
idea, after all, was not so far astray as at 
first it seemed. Heaven is always up. 
It is a where. But it is everywhere. The 
antipodes, each pointing to the sky above 
as Heaven's seat, are after all wiser, per- 
haps, than they dream, for throughout 
the boundless universe of God Heaven 
doubtless is to be found. As one writer 
eloquently says : " The interstellar spaces, 
which we usually fancy are barren des- 
erts where nonentity reigns, are really 
filled with a subtle but material ether 
over which as a royal highway we may 
move in our spiritual bodies from star to 
star. They may be the immortal king- 



I02 Heaven, 

dom colonized by the spirits who since 
creation have sailed from the mortal 
shores of all our planets. They may be 
the crowded aisles of the universal tem- 
ple trod by bright throngs of worshipping 
angels. The believer's home, the Heaven 
of God, may be suffused throughout the 
material universe." There may be one 
mansion, but many abiding places ; one 
family, but many branches ; one home, but 
many departments ; one blessed Christ, 
but many Christly blessings ; one Father, 
but unnumbered children ; one ruling 
Spirit, but many Spirit-directed voca- 
tions; one worship, but many notes; 
one Heaven, yet many heavenly places : 

" Can every leaf a teeming world contain, 
Can every globule gird a countless race, 

Yet one death-slumber in its dreamless reign 
Clasp all the illumined magnificence of space ? 

Life crowd a grain, — from air's vast realms effaced ? 
The leaf a world, — the firmament a waste ? " 



Is Heaveit a Place? 103 

Before the stupendous possibilities of 
the life to come, we may well bow in sol- 
emn question and concern. Am I to 
have a share in this glorious resurrection 
life ? Am I to have the universal liberty 
of a redeemed child of God ? Is creation 
mine ? And am I God's ? Have I a w^ell- 
grounded heavenly hope ? Shall I have 
a place in Heaven with God and his re- 
deemed ? 



IV. 

THE INAUGURATION OF 
HEAVEN. 



IV. 

THE INAUGURATION OF 
HEAVEN. 

So Christ also . . . sha// appear a second time, apa7't 
from sin, to them that wait for him, unto salvatio?i. 
— Heb. ix. 28. 

THE salvation here designated is 
final salvation. It is not the 
salvation of first renewal, first forgive- 
ness, first faith, first love, — what is con- 
tained in or associated with the Pauline 
phrase, " justification by faith." It is 
glorification, — that consummation of re- 
deeming grace which the Christian be- 
liever shall experience on entering the 
bliss and glory of Heaven. 

Heaven is often spoken of as if it 
immediately succeeded death. In an ac- 



io8 Heaven, 

commodated, qualified, and certain loose 
use of the word that is true. The essen- 
tial thing about Heaven is the vision by 
a pure heart of a holy and loving God, 
and so it may in germ exist even in this 
life. But in the stricter, more accurate 
use of the word, Heaven does not imme- 
diately follow death. Our loved ones 
who fall asleep in the Lord do not at 
once go, in the full, strict sense of that 
word, to Heaven. The penitent thief 
did not go to Heaven. Paul is not in 
Heaven. Our recently departed brethren 
are not in Heaven. 

Heaven, in the distinctive sense, de- 
scribes that final bliss, reward, state, con- 
dition, place, and glory, into which we 
enter when we receive our resurrection 
bodies in connection with Christ's sec- 
ond coming and the general judgment. 

The period and state between death 
and Heaven are properly designated Para- 



The Inatigurafzon of Heaven. 109 

dise. It is as in Paradise that we are to 
think of all our Lord's disciples who 
have hitherto died in the faith, or who 
shall die before he comes again in glory. 
Paradise is a condition of fellowship with 
Christ. Paul wished to depart, that is, to 
die, and be with Christ. It is a state of 
improvement upon our present life, else 
the apostle would not have craved it. It 
is a state of rest and blessing in the 
Lord ; they who are in Paradise do rest 
after their wearisome, fatiguing, and 
often anxious toils of life. They are 
conscious. They are in communion with 
God and one another. God told Moses 
at the bush, that he was the God of 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And Jesus 
interpreted the meaning of the declara- 
tion when he said, " God is not the God 
of the dead, but of the living." Jesus 
gives to his disciples eternal life. Those 
who believe on him never die. Lazarus 



no Heaven, 

is conscious, active, and happy in the 
intermediate state. Paul expects to be 
with Christ, even before the last great 
day. 

But the Bible student cannot fail to 
notice that this condition, intermediate 
between death and the resurrection, is 
one of incompleteness. The saints in 
Paradise are awaiting a glory not yet 
theirs, " a salvation ready to be revealed 
in the last time"(i Pet. i. 5). It is at 
the "revelation of Jesus Christ" that 
their faith is to be found " unto praise 
and glory and honor." It is then that, 
in the full, ricli sense of the phrase, they 
are to receive the end of their faith, even 
the salvation of their souls. 

And close examination makes ap- 
parent some of the details of this incom- 
pleteness. It may be that at death all 
remaining bias to sin is graciously re- 
moved from the heart of the true be- 



The Inatiguration of Heaven. 1 1 1 

liever, though I find this nowhere clearly 
affirmed in Scripture, or even directly 
implied. There are even some slight 
intimations to the contrary. When it is 
said, for example, that in the Christian 
dispensation we are come unto the souls 
of ''just men made perfect," the meaning 
is not necessarily that in Paradise there 
are now any spirits as yet made absolutely 
holy, but the meaning is, I take it, that 
in Christ we come into relations with a 
system, a spiritual economy, which shall 
issue in the absolute perfection of re- 
deemed souls. The securing of that per- 
fection may be a part of the work of 
Paradise. In numerous passages in the 
New Testament, however, it is affirmed 
or implied, that a work of development, 
and sometimes it would almost seem a 
work of purification, is going on in the 
intermediate state. In conditions of 
peace and blessing, in conditions of en- 



1 1 2 Heaven, 

hanced communion with Christ, as well 
as of separation from the temptations 
and taunts of those who love not God, 
in conditions of quickened spiritual ac- 
tivity, character is enriching, the soul is 
expanding, the mind is enlarging, the 
redeemed saint is getting ready for that 
complete salvation, which is day by day 
nearer than when we first believed, even 
the salvation in which we shall become 
like Christ. 

And then, in Paradise the saints are 
not yet clothed with their resurrection 
bodies. Emancipated from their nat- 
ural bodies they surely are ; and this is 
doubtless a gain. Those bodies were 
of the dust, and to the dust they have 
returned. 

But that perfect organ of the spirit 
which Paul calls the spiritual body is not 
yet theirs. The Scriptures uniformly 
represent the gift of this body as deferred 



The Inauguration of Heaven, 1 1 3 

until our Lord comes again. Paul is 
very clear on this point. The resurrec- 
tion is not already past. Hymenaeus 
and Philetus, in affirming it, were over- 
throwing the faith of some. The resur- 
rection does not occur at death. The 
trumpet shall sound, the dead shall be 
raised incorruptible, the living shall be 
changed, they that are Christ's shall re- 
ceive their glorious resurrection body, at 
his coming. That to apostolic thought 
is not an event that has yet occurred. 
It was not fulfilled at the death of any 
of Paul's brethren who had fallen asleep 
in Jesus. Stephen had not attained it. 
James had not realized it. It was a 
blessing to come. It was connected with 
a glorious re-manifestation of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, so significant that in union 
with it somehow the universe was to be 
transformed, salvation was to be com- 
pleted, the glorious liberty of the children 

8 



1 14 Heaven. 

of God was to be ushered in, Heaven 
was to begin ! 

Thus Heaven, regarded as the final 
glory of the children of God, begins 
when our full development in Paradise 
has been accomplished, when we have 
received our glorious resurrection bodies, 
when the awards of the final judgment 
have been pronounced, when Christ 
" shall appear a second time, apart from 
sin [that is, no longer as a sin-bearer, a 
sufferer, but now as a triumphant King], 
to them that wait for liim, unto salva- 
tion." Then shall be2;in that reiofn of 
ceaseless, indescribable, heavenly glory, 
whicli the book of Revelation taxes all 
the riches of oriental imagery to portray, 
and in which every prophecy of our 
better nature, every aspiration of heart 
shall be fulfilled. Then, doubtless, with 
the universe of God as the field of our 
activities, we shall enter upon a career of 



The Inauguration of Heaven. 115 

progress and attainment, which the pro- 
foundest philosophy cannot now analyze, 
and which the strono-est imao-ination is 
not able to picture. We may move at 
will throughout the vast universe. We 
may in direct perception know all the 
facts of that universe. Memory may be 
perfect. Mental activity may be inces- 
sant. We may be able to carry on many 
processes of thought at one and the same 
time. By immediate intuition we may 
see into the most abstract truth. A per- 
fect language may give us means of 
exact, infallible utterance. We shall have 
unbroken communion with God. We 
shall be tainted with no thought of sin. 
Pain and sorrow shall have taken their 
flight. The consummation of that splen- 
did ideal, toward which, from creation's 
dawn, all the processes of nature, all the 
developments of history, all the plans of 
redemption have been pointing, shall be 



1 1 6 Heaven, 

realized. A spiritual race, in a spiritual 
body, in a transformed universe, shall 
fitly represent the highest creative wis- 
dom of the all-glorious God, and be, in 
very truth and deed, his children, created 
and perfected in his image. In their 
glorification shall be seen his glory. 

It is our Lord Jesus Christ, then, who, 
in a personal, visible, and glorious return 
to earth, when he shall raise the dead 
and judge the world, is to inaugurate 
Heaven. When God came to Israel at 
Sinai, there were thunders, clouds, light- 
nings, earthquakes, trumpets, cohorts of 
attendinor ano:els. It was doubtless the 
most awe-inspiring scene ever presented 
to mortal eyes. Even Moses said, " I 
exceedingly fear and quake." This in- 
auguration of Jehovah as the peculiar 
sovereign of the Jews, which occurred at 
Mt. Sinai, has been made the pattern, in 
some degree, after which earthly sever- 



The Inauguration of Heaven. 1 1 7 

eigns have ordered the ceremonies of 
their own coronation. Arrayed in royal 
vestments, with a brilliant retinue of 
grandees, and an imposing display of 
troops, the new sovereign comes forth, 
with a herald blowing a trumpet before 
him, and the shouts of the multitude 
crying, " God save the King." And the 
people are impressed by the splendor of 
the pageant. It is natural that in por- 
traying our Lord's return to earth, his 
presence, his second coming, his revela- 
tion of triumphant kingship, the sacred 
writers should draw upon this imagery. 
Much of it we know is only figure of 
speech, the material symbol of spiritual 
truth. We need not suppose a literal 
paling of the moon, or dimming of the 
sun, or falling of the stars, or rolling up 
of the heavens, or assemblage of angels, 
or blowing of trumpets, or gathering of 
clouds. There are numerous intimations 



Ii8 Heaven. 

that only spiritual vision will recognize 
the splendor of the signs and fact of our 
Lord s return. But that he is to come 
again, as surely as he came at first ; that 
he is to return visibly, as surely as he 
ascended visibly; that his second advent 
is to usher in a glorious heavenly era, 
the consummation of all the ages past, 
seems so plainly revealed, that no plea 
of symbol, or of figure can set it aside. 
'' Why stand ye looking into heaven .? " 
said the angels to the disciples after 
Christ's ascension. " This Jesus, which 
was received up from you into heaven, 
shall so come in like manner as ye be- 
held him going into heaven." And 
Peter at Pentecost urges his hearers to 
repent, in order that God " may send the 
Christ, who hath been appointed for you, 
even Jesus ; whom the heavens must re- 
ceive until the times of restoration of all 
things." And Paul tells the Philippians : 



The Inatiguratio7i of Heaven. 119 

" Our commonwealth is in heaven ; from 
whence also we wait for a Saviour, the 
Lord Jesus Christ ; who shall fashion 
anew the body of our humiliation, that 
it ma}^ be conformed to the body of his 
glory." And our text to like effect de- 
clares : " So Christ also, having been once 
offered to bear the sins of many, shall 
appear a second time, apart from sin, to 
them that wait for him, unto salvation." 

There are two things that we should 
heed, when considering our Lord's com- 
ing. 

I. No man knows, or can tell when he 
wdll come. His " comings " indeed are 
various, and are so represented in Scrip- 
ture. He came in the fall of Jerusalem, 
and the outline of Matthew xxiv.-xxv. 
was then partly filled in. But no one 
could fix the date of that Fall. He came 
at Pentecost, and the prophecies of Joel, 
and the promises of Jesus at the Last 



1 20 Heaven, 

Supper, were partially fulfilled. But no 
one knew when the Descent of the Spirit 
would occur. He came at the Reforma- 
tion, but while signs of European re- 
newal, now easily discerned after the 
event, were evident, its exact decade no 
man could fix. He came in the over- 
throw of American slavery ; he came in 
the revivals under Wesley, Whitfield, 
Edwards, Earle, Moody ; but no man 
was wise enouoh to foretell their exact 
day. He comes in death, but when our 
departure is to occur not one of us does 
or can know. He is to come in a yet 
greater manifestation, of which all these 
other comings are but signs, prophecies, 
suggestions ; but no man, nay, not even 
the angels of Heaven know or can tell 
the time of that coming. It is not given 
to us to know the times or seasons, 
which the Father hath set within his 
own authority. 



The Inauguration of Heaven, 121 

When, then, somebody arises who says 
that he has figured out from Daniel, or 
Ezekiel, or John, that our blessed Lord 
is coming to earth again in the year 
1895, or 19 10, or 2210, I say: Who 
art thou to assume more knowledge than 
thy blessed Lord, who himself knew not 
the day of his return ? When some- 
body asks me : " Have you read Prof. A.'s 
or Dr. B.'s prophetic articles 1 " I an- 
swer: Prof. A., or Dr. B. is not the first 
man to say, " Lo, here is the Christ." 
Philastrius said Christ would come in 
365 A. D. ; Hippolytus, in 500 a. d. ; 
Jurieu, in 1785; Bengel, in 1836; Stel- 
ling, in 1816; Miller, in 1843; Lander, 
in 1847; and Totten — is it.^* in 1890- 
something. Have we forgotten the plain 
warnings of Jesus .f* Are we to learn 
nothing from the follies of previous gen- 
erations."^ For aught I know, there may 
be countless spiritual and providential 



12 2 Heaven. 

comino^s of our Lord ere his last o^reat 
Advent, or he may come in final glory 
to-morrow, to-day, this hour. We do 
not know. We cannot know. We are 
to be watchful and ever ready. But it is 
folly to seek to rise above our Christ- 
described limitations. 

II. The expectation of our Lord's re- 
turn ought to enter as a practical force 
into our daily lives. There are a great 
many things about the second coming 
which the wisest of us cannot settle. 
Some think the Lord is to return before 
the millennium. Others think he is to 
return after the millennium. Some think 
we are now in the millennium. Others 
are in a state of suspended judg- 
ment. For myself I incline to adopt 
the post-millennium theory, along with 
the notion that we are now in the mil- 
lennium, as the view which seems to 
me best to harmonize all the facts of 



The Inauguratio7i of Heaven, 123 

Scripture.-^ I think that " the first resur- 
rection," in Rev. xx. 6, is not a material 
resurrection but a spiritual revival, — 
the return of the martyr spirit or the 
prevalence of the confessor's power, — 
even as to-day not Pilate but Jesus, not 
Herod but Peter, not Nero but Paul 
rules the age. I think that the Scrip- 
ture teaches that the world is to grow 
steadily better under the preaching of 
the gospel, until the kingdom of Christ 
is so enlarged that Jews as well as 
Gentiles shall become possessed of its 
blessings, and a prolonged period is in- 
troduced in which Christianity generally 
shall prevail throughout the earth. And 
yet, side by side with this increase of right- 
eousness, there is a corresponding devel- 
opment of evil, to culminate in perhaps 
a personal anti-Christ. This growth of 

^ See Ellicot's Comm. for Eng. readers, note "The 
Millennium," on Rev. xx. 



124 Heaven, 

evil will continue until a time when evil 
shall be for a time restrained. At the 
close of this period, however, evil shall 
again break forth in great power, in its 
final conflict with righteousness. Then 
our Lord shall return to earth to settle 
the strife, to raise the dead, to judge the 
world, to punish the wicked and to re- 
ward the good, and to inaugurate that 
heavenly era which all his disciples de- 
sire. In time, this may be very near, or 
it may be far away. 

It will be noticed, in this suggested 
outline of the order of events in the last 
days, that it is the coming of Christ 
which is to fix and establish tJie kingdom 
of righteousness so that all warfare be- 
tzveen the two shall cease, and all enemies 
shall be put beneath Jesus feet. What 
at last is to become of the wicked may 
be uncertain. Perhaps, shut up in the 
confines of their own wretched selves, 



The Inauguration of Heaven. 125 

they are to sink into an everlasting re- 
morse of conscious woe. So the majority 
of evangehcal scholars have held. Per- 
haps, disintegrated in soul by their very 
sin, or abandoned by God, whose sustain- 
ing energy is requisite to their endless 
existence, they are to drop out of the 
realm of personal identity, and with their 
sin become at last extinct. So some 
evangelical scholars think, hoping that at 
last moral evil is to become extinct, and 
Christ is literally to sum up all things in 
heaven and on earth in himself for God; 
and God is to be all in all. Into all 
such realms of future things, however, we 
can see but dimly, and candid Bible 
students will express themselves with 
great caution. But, be all this as it may, 
one thing appears plain ; the supremacy 
of righteousness, the firm establishment of 
the developed kingdom of God, the inau- 
guration of Heaven, is conditioned on the 



126 Heaven, 

second advent, the personal and even visi- 
ble return, of oitr Lord, Amid all the 
eddies of discussion on this theme, this 
is the vital truth on which to keep firm 
hold. 

And so it is for this consummation that 
we should long and pray. Paradise is 
good, better far no doubt than earth ; but 
Heaven is our commonwealth ; Heaven 
is our home ; Heaven is the city toward 
which as strangers and pilgrims we are 
journeying. It is in Heaven we are fully 
to be saved. It is in Heaven we are to 
receive our complete glorification. It is 
of Heaven that the sweet descriptions 
of the Apocalypse are written. It is in 
Heaven that we are to be like Christ, 
seeing him as he is. It is in Heaven, 
through the resurrection body, that rec- 
ognition of loved ones gone is to be full 
and secure. It is Heaven which is to 
be our crown of life, righteousness, and 



The Inauguration of Heaven. 127 

glory. It is in Heaven that we are to 
be satisfied. 

If then Heaven begins first when 
Christ comes again ; if Christ's appear- 
ance unto full salvation, unto those that 
w^ait for him, is, as our text declares, 
when he comes a second time apart from 
sin, how ought w^e, as Peter says, to be 
" looking for and earnestly desiring the 
coming of the day of God." " When the 
chief Shepherd shall be manifested, ye 
shall receive the crown of glory that 
fadeth not away." How ought our long- 
ing and hope to be : " Come, Lord Jesus, 
come quickly ! " 

And thus it was in the apostolic 
church. You can scarcely open your 
New Testament at any page without see- 
ing one to a dozen references to this 
hope of Christ's coming. It may have 
been near, or far, in point of time, but as 
respects the feelmgs and consciousness of 



128 Heaven, 

the early Christians, the second coming 
of our Lord was always near. To it 
their thoughts and hopes habitually 
turned. It was the " blessed hope." 
With reference to it they lived. For it, 
whenever it might occur, they labored 
to be ready. They comprehended the 
grandeur of that coming occasion. It 
filled their vision. It inspired their hero- 
ism. It awakened their ambition for 
holiness. In afifliction, in temptation, it 
was their stay. With this great hope 
they assured their own drooping hearts; 
and by the certainty of this same solemn 
advent they warned the wicked of their 
danger. They exhorted all men every- 
where to be prepared for it; for, as a 
thief in the night, as lightning out of 
heaven, unexpectedly, suddenly, no man 
could say when, our Lord should come. 
Such in substance is Dr. Hackett's pict- 
ure of " the primitive hope." 



The Inauguration of Heaven. 129 

What a pity that a motive so con- 
stantly adduced, a hope so powerful in its 
influence upon the apostles, the primi- 
tive church of Christ, and many of the 
saintliest men in all ages, — an expecta- 
tion that thrilled Paul, John, Peter, and 
that animates Spurgeon, Muller, Moody, 
and Pierson, — a power that in the New 
Testament is fundamental in its effect 
and appeal with human hearts, is to-day 
practically ignored ! You rarely hear it 
referred to in Christian conversation. 
We rarely sing about it in devotional 
hymns. 

And yet, for one, I am confident that 
a revival not alone of the primitive faith, 
but of the primitive hope, is necessary to 
lift our churches out of worldliness, and 
bring them into fellowship with those 
early disciples to whom our text was ad- 
dressed. For one, I am sure that the 
revival of its proclamation in our pulpits 

9 



1 30 Heaven. 

would reawaken that sense of sin and 
peril of eternal death which seems to be 
escaping the consciousness of modern 
men. 

May the Lord direct our hearts into 
the love of God, and into the patient 
waiting for Christ (2 Thess. iii. 5). May 
he establish our hearts unblameable in 
holiness ... at the coming of our Lord 
Jesus Christ (i Thess. iii. 13). Amen. 



V. 

IS HEAVEN FOR ALL? 



V. 

IS HEAVEN FOR ALL? 

W/io willeth that all men should be saved, and come 
to the k?tow ledge of the truth. — i. Tlm. ii. 4. 

Who shall suffer . . . eternal destruction frojn the 
face of the Lord, and from the glory of his 
might. — 2 Thess. i. 9. 

TS Heaven for all? Are all at last to 
be won to truth and Christ, and so 
to inherit eternal, heavenly life? Or are 
many to reject the mercies of God, be- 
come fixed in the love and habit of sin, 
and so be condemned to their own ever- 
lasting reproaches and the added wrath 
of God? The question is a solemn one; 
and, if the usual answer be correct, the 
question is one which we would gladly 
pass by. But, in any extended teaching 
concerning Heaven, it is a question that 



1 34 Heaven, 

will not keep silence, and a question to 
which a Christian teacher should give in 
all candor such answer as he may have 
derived from the word of God. 

For let it here be noted that it is the 
Bible, and the Bible only, which is com- 
petent to answer our inquiries. Nature 
has for us no answer. Conscience, and 
even Christian sentiment can throw but 
partial light on our theme. To divine 
revelation we must look for satisfaction, 
if satisfaction is attainable, and when it 
speaks we must yield accord, and when 
it is silent we need expect no answer 
elsewhere. And in examining Scripture 
we must survey all its teachings, and 
seek to give due weight to all its decla- 
rations. After years of observation and 
study I am satisfied that this is rarely 
done. From such neglect of compre- 
hensive survey has arisen a carelessness 
touching our destiny, on the one hand, 



Is Heaven for all? 135 

and an over-despondent gloom concern- 
ing mankind, on the other hand. 

The Bible contains two classes of pas- 
sages relative to human destiny, of which 
our texts, both written by Paul, and in 
our Bibles separated by but a page, are 
fair samples. 

There is, first of all, a large number of 
passages, of which the first, obvious, and 
more natural meaning seems to be that 
God purposes the final restoration of all 
men to his favor. They become all the 
more impressive, when grouped in their 
proper order. We are told (2 Pet. iii. 9) 
that the Lord is long-suffering, not slack 
concerning his promises, counting mil- 
lenniums but as days, " not wishing that 
any should perish, but that all should 
come to repentance," — an assurance 
which but echoes Jesus' teaching concern- 
ing the heart of God, who " so loved the 
world that he gave his only-begotten 



1 36 Heaven. 

Son, that whosoever believeth on him 
. . . should have eternal life." Paul 
goes even farther, as in our text, declar- 
ing that God " willeth " (that is, if the pri- 
mary, more natural meaning of the word 
be retained, is resolved, or determined) 
" that all men should be saved and come to 
a knowledge of the truth." Hence God 
sets forth his Son to be a propitiation 
(Rom. iii. 25), and that not alone for 
some but for all. "the propitiation for 
our sins ; and not for ours only, but also 
for the whole world" (i John ii. 2). The 
external ground of salvation being thus 
provided, there appear on the sacred 
pages numerous intimations that it is to 
become inwardly operative on all hearts. 
Our Lord himself says (John xii. 32) : 
" And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, 
will draw all men unto myself," that is, by 
my moral, spiritual influence, exerted in 
view of my death, I will win over to 



Is Heaven for all? 137 

myself the hearts of all. How much is 
locked up in that " all " may be doubtful, 
but perhaps it is all. In the accomplish- 
ment of this purpose the Spirit is sent to 
all ; he is to convict the world in respect 
of sin, and of righteousness, and of judg- 
ment (John xvi. 8). Christ by his Incar- 
nation became the Son of Man, the head 
of mankind, the brother of all, and it was 
as a universal priest, as such a universal 
head of humanity, that he made propitia- 
tion for the sins of the people (Heb. ii. 
17). He is thus Universal Man, Uni- 
versal Brother, Universal Sacrifice, — is 
he to be accepted as Universal Lord ? 
Turning to Philippians, chapter 2, we 
are met with very remarkable teachings 
concerning the person and work of Jesus. 
Nowhere in Scripture is our Saviour's 
divine humanity so completely and so 
clearly presented : — 

" Who being originally in the form of 



138 Heaven. 



God counted it not a thing to be grasped 
to be on an equality with God, but 
emptied himself, taking the form of a 
bond-servant, becoming in the likeness 
of men, and being found in fashion as a 
man, he humbled himself, becoming obe- 
dient even unto death, yea, the death of 
the cross." 

Within these words is locked up the 
whole truth of the Incarnation, and the 
truth of the Atonement. The careful 
interpretation of these words yields a 
perfect wealth of knowledge concerning 
Gods past and present dealings with 
man. 

But the language does not stop here. 
The object of this birth, life, and death of 
Jesus is next stated : " Wherefore [that 
is, in view of his humiliation] also God 
highly exalted him, and gave unto him 
the name which is above every name ; 
that [that is, in order that, marking the 



Is Heaven for all? 139 

divine purpose of Jesus' work ] in the 
name of Jesus every knee should bow, of 
things in heaven and things on earth, and 
things of the world below, and that every 
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ 
is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." 
A candid and critical student of Scrip- 
ture notices in this declaration of the 
divine purpose of our Lord's work in the 
world several details, which are tributary 
to the discovery of the exact meaning of 
the passage. First, he notices the phrase 
" in the name of Jesus," which is equiva- 
lent to " in the person of Jesus," which 
again is equivalent to " in Jesus." This 
means " in the sphere of Jesus," " in com- 
munion or harmony with Jesus ; " it nat- 
urally means moral and voluntary accord. 
That is, it means this, unless it departs 
from its usual, and so far as I can recall, 
its universal Pauline meaning. Secondly, 
the " bowing of every knee " naturally 



140 Heaven. 

implies adoration, voluntary submission 
(and though this idea is in Rom. xiv. 1 1 
not necessary to tlie context, it is not 
shut out by it). Moreover, the "confes- 
sion " referred to is, if the usual meaning 
of the word be here retained, a "glad, 
open, out-spoken confession of praise and 
thanksgiving." This interpretation is 
streno:thened bv the fact that such is the 
idea in the original passage in Isaiah, xlv. 
23, which Paul appears to have in mind 
and partly to quote. The entire pas- 
sage tluis appears to teach the universal 
restoration of all creation to the divine 
favor as beino: God's desi2:n in Christ. 

But is this purpose of the coming of 
Christ to be fulfilled? Let us examine 
a further passage of Scripture. At 
Ephes. i. 9, we read that our salvation is 
in accordance with an eternal purpose of 
God. The revelation of God's will (that 
is, determinative decision) is the revelation 



Is Heaven for all? 141 

of this object which God set before him- 
self as in Christ to be effected in the ful- 
ness of times, viz : " to sum up all things 
in Christ, the things in the heavens and 
the things upon the earth." It is then the 
decision or decree of God, that all things, 
all creation, men and angels, shall find at 
last a living unity in Jesus Christ. 

Here, then, we seem to have found 
expressed a divine desire, a divine plan, 
and a divine decree, that all men shall be 
saved ; for the accomplishment of which 
full provision has been made in the per- 
fect life, sacrificial death, and continued 
intercession of Jesus, as well as in the 
universal influences of the Holy Spirit, 
which he sends forth ; and so, Paul declares 
(Rom. v. 18): "As through one trespass 
the judgment came unto all men to con- 
demnation ; even so through one act of 
righteousness the free gift came unto all 
men to justification of life." The "con- 



142 Heaven- 

demnation " was as historic as the " tres- 
pass ;" it seems natural to infer that the 
" justification of life " is to be as historic as 
the act of "righteousness." Or again 
(1 Cor. XV. 22), "As in Adam all die," in 
body and spirit, "so in Christ shall all be 
made alive," in spirit and body. And thus 
is laid the foundation for that magnificent 
prophecy, v. 25, £f. : "He must reign till 
he hath put all his enemies under his 
feet . . . And when all things have been 
subjected unto him, then shall the Son 
also be subjected [the same word that is 
used of the Son's opponents] to him that 
did subject all things unto him, that God 
may be all in all." 

I have thus presented the clearest pas- 
sages which seem to teach that Heaven is 
ultimately for all. I have not quoted them 
loosely, but, I have sought to quote them 
with exegetical exactness, in due regard 
to the connections in which they appear. 



Is Heaven for all? 143 

I will frankly say, that, if they were all 
that Scripture teaches concerning man's 
ultimate destiny, I should think it suffi- 
ciently suggested in God's word, that in 
the course of the ages all souls are to be 
restored to holiness and divine favor, all 
moral beings are to accept and obey the 
Christ, as Lord, — to justify me in enter- 
taining the universal hope. Such is the 
first, or more obvious meaning of the 
Scriptures I have cited. If they were 
all, universal restoration would be my 
cheer. 

But it needs to be marked that this is 
not all that God's word declares about 
our destiny. There are other teachings, 
more frequent, equally clear, and fearfully 
impressive, to be found in God's word, 
which declare that sin leads to death, that 
men, if continuing in sin, are in danger of 
that awful punishment described in one of 
our texts, — " even eternal destruction from 



144 Heaven. 

the face of the Lord and the glory of his 
might." 

Words could not be more dread than 
those which are used. He that believes 
on Christ shall indeed be saved, but on 
him who disbelieves the wrath of God 
abides, and he shall not see life (John iii. 
36). To the Pharisees accusing him of 
being in league with Satan, Jesus declares 
that they are liable to an "eternal sin," — 
the sin of blaspheming against the Holy 
Ghost, — a sin that so involves the perver- 
sion of all moral faculty, the obduracy in 
evil of all moral choice, that in it is no room 
for repentance, and so for it there can 
never be forgiveness, either in this world, 
or in the world to come (Mark iii. 29 and 
£f.). And with sin is inextricably joined 
punishment. The wages of sin is death. 
If there be eternal sin, there must be eter- 
nal death Whenever and wherever sin 
is, the wrath of God abides on it. He who 



Is Heaven for all? 145 

like Dives goes into Hades an unforgiven 
sinner, proud, luxurious, and lustful, shall 
in Hades reap what he has sown, — thirst, 
hunger, unsatisfied lust, torment in a lake 
of fire (Luke xvi. 23-24). If a man deny 
not himself for Christ's sake, there awaits 
him Gehenna, where their worm dieth not 
and the fire is not quenched (Mark ix. 
passim). If men refuse to do deeds of 
charity to their fellow-men, Christ to them 
shall say in the judgment hour : " Depart 
from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire, 
which is prepared for the devil and his 
angels ; . . . and these shall go away into 
eternal punishment" (Matt. xxv. 41-46). 
Hear Paul (Rom. ii. 7) : " Unto them that 
obey not the truth, but obey unrighteous- 
ness, shall be wrath and indignation, trib- 
ulation and anguish upon every soul of 
man that worketh evil ; " or " Rendering 
vengeance to them that know not God, 
and to them that obey not the gospel of 



10 



1 46 Heaven. 

our Lord Jesus ; who shall suffer punish- 
ment, even eternal destruction from the 
face of the Lord and from the glory of his 
might " (2 Thess. i. 9). Or read these 
fearful descriptions of punishment in the 
book of Revelation: "If any man wor- 
shippeth the beast and his image, ... he 
shall be tormented with fire and brimstone 
in the presence of the holy angels and in 
the presence of the Lamb ; and the smoke 
of their torment goeth up for ever and 
ever" (Rev. xiv. 11). Or again : and the 
devil and the beast are cast into the lake 
of fire and brimstone ; " and they shall 
be tormented day and night for ever and 
ever " (Rev. xx. 10). 

Oh, my friends, it will not do to dismiss 
these words as mere figures of speech. 
Of course they are figures. But they 
figure something. The symbol must be 
less fearful than the reality. If a moment 
since we were lured to prospects of uni- 



Is Heaven for all? 147 

versal redemption, we are now confronted 
by a picture of retribution for sin so fear- 
ful, so prolonged, that it appears hopeless. 
" Eternal sin " — " eternal punishment " — 
"tormented for ever and ever!" This 
seems to be plain language ; and the sense 
of it seems obvious. It seems to declare 
that some are to go into hopeless ruin, 
into an eternity of fixed evil choice, into 
companionship of demons, false prophets, 
and base world-powers, there to continue 
forever under the gnawings of their own 
remorse, the fires of their own condemning 
conscience, and the fearful, unending, 
expressed displeasure of an all-holy God. 
This language seems to teach the oppo- 
site of what our other group of passages 
taught. And taken in conjunction with 
other Scriptures, it seems to teach, not 
only that Heaven is not for all, but also 
that of those who reach years of discretion 
it is but a minority thus far that have 



148 Heaven. 

begun that career of spiritual life which 
shall be consummated in Heaven. 

If the vision of a probable restoration 
of all men was cheering, animating, hope- 
ful, this opposite vision of a race involved, 
as respects we know not how many of its 
members, in eternal sin, and eternal pain, 
and eternal ruin, is cheerless, depressing, 
full of blank despair. With a frankness 
as real as I meant to display concerning 
the Bible doctrine of restitution, I have 
also sought to outline the first impression 
of the Bible teaching regarding retribution. 
And as a result we are landed in seeming 
contradiction and uncertainty. 

Is there any way out '^. Many declare 
that tliere is. Some insist that this second 
class of passages must give way to the first, 
that " eternal " does not mean everlasting^ 
— it contains no idea of duration, but only 
of quality of action ; or, if it designates 
time, it is only "aeonian" time, the time 



Is Heaven for all? 149 

of this age, — and so " for ever and ever " 
means ages on ages, and, when these are 
ended, restitution may set in. Others 
say, the first class of passages must give 
way to the second ; that these first pas- 
sages only teach us what God wants to do, 
is willing to do, and has made provision 
for doing, if man will accept God's mercy ; 
but we go too far in inferring that God's 
desire is actually to be accomplished ; 
that " eternal " is everlasting, and con- 
scious punishment shall last forever, 
through all the infinite ages of eternity, 
for those who in this world reject Jesus 
Christ. Yet, a third class say that both 
groups of passages require some modifi- 
cation of their first, most obvious meanino: 
ere we can harmonize them. They main- 
tain that such modifications come natur- 
ally, unforced, out of the patient, compar- 
ative study of these Scriptures. These 
harmonizers say that the passages foretell- 



1 50 Heaven. 

ing the restitution of all things do involve 
the absolute extinction of evil, the final 
annihilation of sin, and the ultimate doing 
away of conscious punishment in the uni- 
verse, but perhaps they involve no more ; 
then they add that the punishment " eter- 
nal " may be punishment whose conse- 
quences are unending, and such punish- 
ment may not always be conscious. They 
think that in the course of ?eons the wicked 
will be eaten up by their sin, drop out of 
existence into an annihilation of ruin 
beyond reprieve, and then all remaining 
conscious spirits, being holy, will gather 
about Christ and proclaim him Lord of 
all. So God shall be all in all. 

Which of these views is correct ? Many, 
perhaps the majority, say the second, 
that is, the view of strictly everlasting 
conscious sin and suffering. The hopes 
and feelings of our generation incline 
others to the first, that is, the view that 



Is Heaven for all ? 151 

after ages of ages all shall be gathered 
back to God. A growing number of 
scholarly and evangelical interpreters in- 
cline to the third, that is, to the belief 
that the wicked will finally be suffered 
to drop out of existence, and Christ 
and his disciples will be left to enjoy the 
entire universe of God. Which view is 
correct ? I must be frank — as a loyal 
student of God's w^ord, who has applied 
himself for years to its examination, and 
would ever bow in absolute subjection 
to its clear teaching — I must frankly 
acknowledge that I think the question 
unsettled. The difficulties attaching: to 
each view are as yet, in my mind, so great 
and so numerous that I cannot as a posi- 
tive conviction accept any one of the 
three views. With perplexity of mind, and 
with prayer for light as soon as God may 
see fit, if at all, to grant it, I deem as yet 
unsolved, as perhaps in this world insolu- 



152 Heaven. 

ble, this great question which has agitated 
the ages, and upon which many are ready 
to pronounce a glib opinion, though they 
may never have given it independent and 
critical study, nor for a moment weighed 
the grave significance of an acceptance 
of any one of the chief historic opinions 
which I have named. I have studied it, 
days, nights, months, and years, — critically 
and prayerfully ; but I cannot say that I 
tliink that the Bible teaches the doctrine 
of absolutely universal final restoration, 
though in many places it appears so to 
do. I cannot say tliat I am absolutely con- 
vinced that Scripture teaches the ever- 
lasting conscious misery of the wicked, 
though often it appears as if it does so 
declare. Neither am I confident that 
Scripture afiirms, or suggests, the opinion 
that extinction of being is to be the ulti- 
mate doom of the incorrigibly wicked, 
though I incline to think that this, regarded 



Is Heaven for all? 153 

purely as a hypothesis, is not anti-Scriptu- 
ral, and may be the more probable tentative 
view. I am content to leave the question 
of the final doom of the wicked with a just, 
holy, and loving God, being absolutely 
sure that the Judge of all the earth will do 
right. 

Meanwhile, as I read the Bible, I am 
more and more impressed with the evil, 
degradation, and horror of sin. It is sin 
more than punishment that looms in lurid 
grandeur before my view. It is universal, 
among men. It has driven all souls apart 
from God. It is the fruitful source of 
discord, anarchy, ruin. It is so great, so 
tremendous, that God's own Son alone can 
put it away, God's own Spirit alone can 
break its power. 

Nor are the punishments of sin doubt- 
ful or inadequate. We are to receive our 
exact deserts. There is no doctrine of 
death and immediate glory, in the Bible. 



154 Heaven. 

There is no doctrine of the unconscious 
sleep of the soul after death, in the Bible. 
There is no doctrine of the wicked's imme- 
diate annihilation after death, in the Bible. 
Sin is to be punished, punished justly, 
punished to the full, punished in this world 
and punished in the next, punislied until 
all God's purposes in retribution, whatever 
those purposes may be, have been fully 
accomplished. Nor can tlicre be any 
doubt that tliese retributions are to be 
of unspeakable dread, and of paralyzing 
terror. " It is a fearful thino^ to fall into 
the hands of the living God." " Our God 
is a consuminsf fire." 

As I read these warnings and appeals 
of God's word, I can find nothing that 
justifies me in saying to, or in saying 
of, any man who has once intelligently 
rejected Christ, that he will have another 
chance after death. This one warning 
appears in every appeal of Holy Writ : 



Is Heaven for all? 155 

" To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden 
not your heart." Every line of Scripture 
heightens the impression of the awful 
danger of continuing in impenitence and 
unbelief. That there are punishm.ents, 
conscious, prolonged, terrific, unspeakable, 
in the ages to come for those who turn 
away from God and his Christ, I cannot 
for one instant question. While sin lasts, 
punishment endures ; and that sin goes 
into the other life and long continues 
there, is plainly written in the Bible. 

For one, then, I wish to run no risks. 
I wish no friend of mine to run any risks. 
I wish no son of man to run any risks. 
I wish to cry aloud, — " Danger ! Danger ! 
Danger ! " — to all who walk in the ways 
of sin. I wish to turn men, all lands 
through, away from sin and wrath. I 
wish to get Heaven into men's hearts, 
here, and then there will be no concern 
about the Heaven hereafter. I wish to 



156 Heaven. 

get hell out of men's hearts here, and then 
we need fear no hell for them hereafter. 

My friend, whom are you serving to- 
day? Self or Christ ? Mammon or God? 
Sin or righteousness ? So long as you 
serve self and mammon and sin, and thus 
refuse Christ and God and riohteousness, 
the divine disfavor rests upon you ; you 
are without hope and without God in the 
world. The only right thing to do is to 
repent now. He is a thief who lingers 
in sin, for he robs God of time and ser- 
vice which are God's due. The only safe 
thing is to accept Christ now, for he takes 
a leap into the dark who goes hence unfor- 
given and unrenewed. 

The search-lisfhts of God are now cast- 
ing all their solemn glory on you. What 
manner of man or woman art thou ? Lost 
or found ? It is a law, as fixed and unbend- 
ing as God himself: As thy affinity, 

so THY DESTINY ! 



YI. 
THE WAY TO HEAVEN, 



VI. 
THE WAY TO HEAVEN. 

/ a}}i the iL'ijy, and the truth, and the life; no 
one Cometh unto the Father but by me. — John xiv. 6. 

^ I ^HERE is a ring of certainty about 
these words that is assurino-. There 
are many things about Heaven concern- 
ing which we have no clear or detailed 
revelation. To some of these thino-s I 
have referred in recent discourses. But 
concernino: the wav to Heaven, as to how 
to get to Heaven, there is no shadow of 
doubt. It is as clearly defined, and as 
distinctly visible, as is the outline of one 
of our mountains on one of our fairest 
days. 

The fourteenth chapter of John was 
not as intellio-ible to those who first 

CD 



1 60 Heaven, 

heard its words of comfort as it is to us. 
It was so difficult for those first disciples 
to grasp the idea that Christ's kingdom 
was not to be a temporal kingdom, that 
his predictions of going to the Father, of 
preparing places for them, of coming and 
taking them to the place where he was, 
were more or less perplexing to them. 
Where was he going? How could they 
journey thither ? Thomas expressed his 
companions' uncertainty, as well as his 
own, in the words : " We know not 
whither thou goest ; how know we the 
way } " And our Lord answers in clearest 
notes : " I am going to God, my Father, 
your Father, the Father. To be in loving 
and obedient companionship with him is 
Heaven. For not in Heaven are we to 
find God; but in God are we to find 
Heaven. Thither is my journey ; and 
the way ye ought to know. But once for 
all to make it clear, I will again point out 



The Way to Heaven, i6i 

the path to that heavenly glory, which, 
all who will may share ; I am the way, 
and the truth, and the life ; no one Com- 
eth unto the Father, but by me." 

An ordinary man, however holy or wise, 
can but point out the way, or the truth, 
or the life. Jesus is no ordinary man. 
He is at once the Son of Man and the 
Son of God. He is the way, and the 
truth, and the life ; by him is access to 
God and Heaven. 

That the highway between earth and 
Heaven, man and God, has been either 
obstructed or destroyed, the conscious- 
ness of the race attests. The Lord God 
called out to fallen Adam, " Where art 
thou } " and the voice came to a guilty, 
conscience-stricken pair, hiding in their 
shame among the trees of the garden. 
What a picture is that of us all ! We 
know we are sinful, conscience tells us 

we have done wrong and are in disfavor, 

II 



1 62 Heaven. 

and we are trying to hide from God. O 
for some way out of our sin and guilt ; O 
for some peace of conscience and some 
spirit of confidence; O for access once 
more to God ; O that this chasm between 
us and our Maker, between earth and 
Heaven might be bridged ; O for a way 
to the Father ! 

It is precisely Jesus Christ who bridges 
that chasm. Stricken consciences slay 
and burn great hecatombs, " the which," 
however, "can never take away sins." 
Heavy hearts invent penances, pilgrim- 
aofcs, relii^ious ceremonies ; no one nor all 
of which, however, "can make perfect 
them that draw nigh." 

The simple fact is, man cannot bridge 
the chasm. He is like a general who has 
burned his bridges behind him, knowing 
that on the other side of the rushing 
river are the timber and stone wherewith 
to build a causeway. Some one else 



The Way to Heaven. i6 



o 



must construct bridges, if ever with his 
armies he is to return. Man by sin has 
cut tlie cord that unites him to God. The 
only way of return would be by undoing 
all his evil past, and never doing evil 
henceforth. To neither of these achieve- 
ments is he equal. He cannot pull God 
down to himself. The process must be 
the reverse of this. God must lift man 
up to himself. 

Now Jesus Christ is Heaven's ap- 
proach to wayward, sinful, guilty man. 
He is God s declaration of continued love. 
He is God's evidence of unchanging holi- 
ness. He is God's manifestation of un- 
yielding justice. He is God's magnify- 
ing of unimpeachable, heavenly law. He 
is God's word to inquiring man. In the 
person and ministry of Jesus Christ God 
himself takes the initiative in human re- 
covery. He says to his guilty and con- 
demned children : " You need query no 



1 64 Heaven, 

lonsfer as to whether I will as^ain receive 
you. Behold my son ! You need doubt 
no longer whether there is any adequate 
sacrifice for sin. He is the propitiation 
for your sins. You need ask no lonsfer, 
if I can pardon a penitent sinner, with- 
out violatino: the obli2:ations I sustain to 
perfect, righteous law. He is set forth, 
the just for the unjust, to show forth 
my righteousness ! You need doubt no 
longer if there is access to God, and 
peace with the Father. Through the 
Lord Christ is peace with God ; through 
him also there is access by faith into the 
favor of Heaven. In Christ you may re- 
joice in hope of the glory of God!" 

I suppose no one listening to my words 
is wholly indifferent to this question of 
how to get to Heaven. We know we are 
in a far country. We are not, in a world 
of selfishness and reproach, in our true 
Fatherland. Heaven is our Fatherland 



The Way to Heaven. 165 

But we are like a Swiss mountaineer, who 
despite the glory of his native canton, 
has wandered from home, and sick at 
heart for the sight of his dear Alps, has 
no way of getting back. He is on another 
continent than his own. Great oceans 
separate him from snow-capped Blanc, 
and there is no ship to take him back. 
Rivers wide and deep are between the 
western shore of Europe and his own 
chalet; their bridges have been swept 
away, and he cannot rebuild them. The 
highways are closed, the towns are walled 
and gated against him. He is away from 
Home, a man without a Country, and 
there is no way back to Fatherland. 

Yes, no ship that man can frame, no 
bridge that man can build, no causeway 
that man can open, no gates that man 
can unlock can make a highway back to 
the God we have left, and the Heaven we 
have deserted. It is necessary that God 



1 66 Heaven, 

build that ship, that God construct that 
bridge, that God open those gates and 
uplift that causeway. And this he has 
done in Jesus Christ. He is the Mediator 
between man and God. He is God's lov- 
ing provision for meeting all the require- 
ments of his just and holy law. He is the 
way over which in penitence and faith we 
may go back to God and Heaven. 

Thus he becomes to us also the truth. 
Being God's provision for our salvation, 
an external, objective, though ethical 
ground for our faith, he is necessarily also 
a perfect Revelation of the character and 
purpose of God, tlie nature and destiny 
of man, the conditions and blessings of 
eternal life. He alone leads to the 
Father. It is a sisfnificant fact that out- 
side of Jesus' teachings you find no ade- 
quate presentation of the divine Father- 
hood, the full and glad realization of 
which is the very essence of Heaven. A 



The Way to Heave^i. 167 

few of the ancient poets, and some of 
the old philosophers exhibit traces of the 
doctrine ; but they scarcely rise above the 
idea that Fatherhood consists of Creator- 
ship. The Old Testament often gives 
glimpses of the truth. But in Christ's 
discourses and life for the first time rose 
the full glory of this revelation on men. 
Jesus not only taught that God is our 
Father, and that the way back to God 
and Heaven is to rise to a realization of 
our sonship, but what is inconceivably 
more, Jesus exhibited the truth in his 
own character. When you hear w4iat 
Jesus says, you hear what God would say 
under like circumstances. When you 
note what Jesus feels in the face of suf- 
fering, or death, or disease, or infirmity, 
or cruelty, or crime, or hypocrisy, you 
note precisely what God, the Father, feels, 
as he sees these evils. When you mark 
what Jesus does for the removal of sick- 



1 68 Heaven, 

ness, sin, sorrow, and tyranny, you see in 
him the exact mind, purpose, will, and 
operation of God himself. Thus we know 
the Father not by mere abstract teach- 
in o^s about the Father. We know the 
Father by specific and countless exhibi- 
tions of what the Father is, wills, and 
does, as afforded in the ministry of God's 
Son. Therefore Jesus said : " I am the 
truth." " He that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father." 

But to get back to God, it is not only 
requisite to be assured that all external 
obstacles are removed, that the Father 
can and will receive me, if I but come ; it 
is not only necessary to see the Father in 
spirit and truth, to mark distinctly the 
heavenly goal toward which I should 
journey ; it is also necessary to have the 
inward impulse, the spiritual energy, the 
living purpose, to start on our Heaven- 
ward journey. We need the way, we 



The Way to Heaven. 169 

need the truth ; but even more we need 
the life. And it is herein that the su- 
preme evidence of our Lord's divine Son- 
ship appears. It is said that a man fell 
into a deep pit from which he could not 
unaided escape. It was all dark and 
helpless with him. It chanced that Con- 
fucius passed by and heard his cries. 
Stepping to the pit's edge he said : 
" Well, you are in a sorry plight. You 
were a careless man. Let me give you 
some good advice, — when you get out 
of this peril, be careful not to fall into 
this hole again ! " Then Buddha chanced 
to pass by, who, hearing the man's groans, 
with tender feeling said : " Yes, you are 
in a poor fix. Can I get you out ? The 
only way out is virtually to stay in. Close 
your eyes to the twinkling stars above. 
Cease reaching after some root or ledge, 
by which to lift yourself up. Be still. 
Drink a little, now and then, of the mias- 



1 70 Heaven. 

matic waters that trickle by your feet. 
Forget, and lapse, and give up willing, 
and soon you will be no more a con- 
scious person, but reabsorbed into the 
impersonal will-less All." Then Moses, 
noble soul, chanced that way. When 
he saw his brother's distress, he knelt 
before the pit, he stretched down his 
stout arm, and he said : " Now, friend, 
take hold of my true hand, and I will lift 
you up." But, alas, as the poor impris- 
oned man lifted up his hand there was a 
long distance betwi.xt it and his helper. 
If he could have grasped the great legis- 
lator's hand, and held it, he could have 
come to light and life ; but reach it or 
hold it he could not. And, last of all, 
blessed hour ! the Lord Christ came that 
w^ay. He had heard the cry of distress, 
and w^as making straight for its source. 
With tearful eye he saw all and planned 
the rescue. He slowly lowered a strong 



The Way to Heaven. 171 

ladder into the gloomy pit, and then de- 
scended on it to the pit's very depths. 
He spoke a word of cheer, he gave a 
portion of celestial elixir. He took the 
pit-fallen, exhausted man upon his own 
strong shoulders, and mounting the gold- 
en rounds, brought his helpless brother 
to light, life, and hope. That is Jesus 
Christ always. He does not merely ad- 
vise. He does not point out a course and 
give partial, yet, because partial, unavail- 
ing help. He comes down into the very 
heart of our sin and sorrow. He bears 
our sins. He carries our sorrows. He is 
tempted in all points as are we. And 
then giving us of his own divine life he 
brings us up to God. He actually starts 
us toward Heaven ; he accompanies us all 
the way through life to Heaven. The 
Christ life in the soul is eternal life. He 
who has it will have Heaven. He is the 
way, and the truth 1 Yes. But more : he 
is the life. 



172 Heaven. 

There are some lessons o-rowino- out of 
our Lord's relation to the heavenly jour- 
ney which I wish to emphasize. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ is not merely a 
way, he is the only way to Heaven. He 
has made a sufficient sacrifice for sin. No 
one else ever has made or can make that. 
He has perfectly revealed the Father ; no 
one before him or apart from him has 
done tliat. He awakens in the soul a 
holy energy, a divine love, a determined 
enthusiasm, which starts it in successful 
quest of tlie prize of the high calling of 
God in Christ Jesus. No one else does 
that. Plato, after a rapt vision of better 
things for man and earth, says : " But we 
must await the advent of some divine 
man ere we can secure their worth." 
That divine man has come in the person 
of Jesus Christ. Augustine says that 
the beautiful ideals of heathen poets and 
sasres were bevond his reach till one from 



The Way to Heaven, 173 

above renewed his soul. That one who 
changed his heart was Christ our life. If 
Socrates and Plato and Aurelius are in 
Paradise and shall yet reach Heaven, it 
will be only through Christ. In view of 
his sacrifice it is that God can forgive 
and restore justly any sinful soul. If 
these ancient sages were lovingly loyal 
to the best ideals they knew, it was be- 
cause they yielded to that light " which 
lighteth every man, as he cometh into 
the world," and that light became w^ay, 
truth, and life in the person of Jesus 
Christ. If there are any godly heathen 
in pagan lands to-day, who on coming be- 
fore God will be acceptable before him 
as was righteous Cornelius, it will be in 
view of the fact that their hearts are so 
open that when once the Christ is offered 
to them, they will like that same Corne- 
lius, accept him as their hearts' desire. 
If any in Christian lands, like Emerson 



1 74 Heaven. 

or Mills or Montefiore, who have been 
unable to accept historic Christianity, are 
yet saved at last, it will be through 
Christ's atoning sacrifice, and because in 
their hearts, if not their heads, they were 
loyal to the essential Christ, and, when 
all mists are cleared away, will with mind 
as well as heart be able to receive Jesus 
as Saviour and Lord. If little children 
at death pass to Jesus' arms, it is that 
Jesus' death is accepted for them, and be. 
cause their youthful minds are renewed 
so as eternally to choose him as their 
redeeming Master. And if one of us, to 
whom Christ has been preached, by 
whom Christ is admitted to be what he 
professes to be, and with whom Christ's 
Spirit, it may be again and again, has 
striven, is permitted to enter the heavenly 
glory, it will be for the reason tliat such 
a one accepted Christ, not in any dog- 
matic, theologic sense, but in a profound. 



The Way to Heaven. 175 

practical, spiritual sense, as his personal, 
peculiar Lord and Saviour. There are 
but two ways to Heaven, — by a per- 
fect character, or by a perfect Saviour. 
No mortal man has a perfect character. 
Hence there is none other name than 
Jesus Christ given among men whereby 
we must be saved. Our Lord in our text 
lays grave emphasis upon the pronouns. 
"I — and I only — am the way, and the 
truth, and the life ; no one cometh unto 
the Father but by me." My friend, if you 
are relying on any hope whatsoever, be it 
of culture, or of character, or of knowl- 
edge, or of good intentions ; if you are 
relying upon any hope save the mercy of 
God as revealed in Jesus Christ, for a 
dwelling-place in Heaven, then is your 
reliance and your hope a delusive hope, 
and your future a dark, cheerless, and 
God-less future. You are building on 
sand and not on rock, save as you are 



1 76 Heaven. 

rearing a character on the foundation of 
obedience to Jesus Christ. 

" Thou art my Saviour ! there is none 
But thee on whom I dare rely : 
For thee, O Christ, 'tis mine to Hve, 
In thee my joy shall be to die." 

I am impressed, in bringing to a close 
this series of discourses on Heaven, with 
the thought that it is not enough to desire 
Heaven. For six mornings we have been 
noting together some of the aspects of the 
heavenly life. I cannot believe that any of 
us have been wholly unmoved in view of 
the truths and attractions that we have 
been led to examine. Down in our hearts, 
at any rate, in our better moments, we 
would like to be in harmony with God. 
Not one of us wishes to be forever the 
companion of evil spirits, or even for un- 
named ages to be shut out from God's 
presence, or to be so total a failure before 
man and God as to sink into corruption 



The Way to Heaven. 177 

so great as to involve at last the extinc- 
tion of our conscious being. We would 
all like to succeed ; we would all like to 
realize the end of our creation ; we would 
all like to associate again with the saintly 
spirits whom we have known and loved 
on earth. Ah yes, we would like ! But 
that may have very little to do with the 
matter. The question is, are we resolved 
to journey Heavenward ? How long have 
some of you been saying : '' I would like 
to be a Christian, I would like to have a 
heavenly hope " ? Some of you may have 
been saying that for twenty or thirty 
years, and yet to-day may be farther 
from the realization of your desire, — at 
any rate no nearer to it, — than you were 
those years ago. It is less a question of 
desiring than it is of starting. To reach 
Heaven start for Heaven ! 

For what if, after all the teaching and 

exhortation we may have heard, we 

12 



1 78 Heaven. 

should be shut out of Heaven at last? 
Spurgeon tells the story of an old minis- 
ter near whom he lived when a boy, who 
used to go from his own preaching ser- 
vice every month to the immediately fol- 
lowinsf communion service of a nei2:hbor- 
ing church. During this observance of 
the Supper, it was customary to shut the 
gates of the chapel to prevent any dis- 
turbance through persons going out or 
coming in. On one occasion the burden 
of the Lord pressed upon the venerable 
preaclier with more than ordinary sever- 
ity, his discourse w^as lengthened, and he 
had to hurry to the chapel. As he drew 
near he noticed the doorkeeper retire 
from the outer gate, after having shut it. 
He called to him, but was not heard. He 
quickened his pace to another entrance ; 
but it was too late. The minister came 
up " just in time " to see the door put to, 
and be himself shut out ! He heard the 



The Way to Heaven. 179 

singing within and longed to join in it. 
He called up in imagination the sweet 
communion of saints there in progress, 
but he could not then share in it. And 
the lad Spurgeon as he saw it all said : 
"And how shall it be with me? Shall I 
come up to the gate of Heaven only in 
time to be too late, to find the door for- 
ever shut ? " And the man Spurgeon 
with power unsurpassed used often to 
turn to his hearers, as I would turn to 
each of you, and say : " Will you stop 
with merely wishing to go to Heaven ? 
Or will you not now receive Jesus 
Christ as your Way, your Truth, and 
your Life ; your Sacrifice, your Prophet, 
and your King, and make an actual start 
for Heaven ? " 

Some of you, I believe, have of late 
been pricked in conscience, or touched in 
heart, or stirred with apprehension, and 
have felt Jesus' spirit struggling with 



i8o Heaven. 

you. To some of you Jesus of Nazareth 
is consciously this hour " passing by." 

" Ho ! all ye heavy laden, come ! 
Here 's pardon, comfort, rest, and home ; 
Ye wanderers from a Father's face. 
Return, accept his proffered grace. 
Ye tempted ones, there 's refuge nigh. 
'Jesus of Nazareth passeth by.' 

" But if you still this call refuse, 
And all his wondrous love abuse. 
Soon will he sadly from you turn, 
Your bitter prayer for entrance spurn, — 
'Too late ! too late !' will be the cry, 
'Jesus of Nazareth HAS PASSED BY.' '^ 



RICHARD MONTAGUE. 



311 €riBute. 

By rev. ALVAH HOVEY, D. D., LL.D. 



RICHARD MONTAGUE. 



A TRIBUTE.! 

OINCE last Wednesday the words, " Be still, 
and know that I am God," have been 
often in my thoughts. Not, of course, for the 
first time, but with more than usual frequency. 
For the mysteries of life are too dark to be 
long absent from the mind of any thoughtful 
Christian, and a message like this from the 
Father of lights is too full of peace to be long 
forgotten. If we lift up our eyes and survey 
the great harvest field, with but scattered groups 
of laborers in all its vast extent, we may ask 
ourselves in vain, why so many of these laborers 
are called away from the field while the sun 
of their working day has scarcely reached its 
zenith? But if we listen for it, a quieting 
voice will come from the Allwise, saying, " Be 
still, and know that I am God." " What thou 

^ Given at the funeral service, July 27, 1895. 



184 Richard Montague, 

knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter; " 
and the message will give us peace. 

Yet our own reason, however feeble, does 
not fail to remind us of a partial explanation 
of the mystery involved in the taking away of 
good men " in the midst of their days." A 
human life may be short, if measured by one 
standard of duration, and long, if measured by 
another; short, if measured by the procession 
of the stars, but long, if measured by " the 
work of faith, and labor of love, and patience 
of hope ; " short, if measured by the flight of 
seasons, but long, if measured by difficulties 
overcome, results achieved, and sufferings en- 
dured. " That life is long which answers 
life's great end." From the very highest point 
of view, that life is consummate and glorious 
which can be closed with the words, ** I have 
fought a good fight, I have finished my course, 
I have kept the faith." In such a case, whether 
the years of service have been few or many, 
there is no mystery so long as we confine 
our thoughts to the workman who is called 
to his reward : the only cloud that our 
eyes can see rests upon the great harvest, still 
ungathered. 



A Tribute. 185 

Though I must have met with Dr. Morxta- 
gue when he was but a lad in his father's house 
at Westboro', my acquaintance with him began 
when he entered our Institution, eighteen years 
ago. He was then in the prime of early man- 
hood, twenty-four years old, a graduate of 
Harvard, and a student during one year of 
Harvard Divinity School. His bearing was 
courteous and unassuming, his countenance 
open and engaging, his words distinct and 
well chosen, his devotion to study manifest 
and absorbing, and his Christian activity cheer- 
ful and earnest. The class which he joined 
had in it such men as Professors Charles R. 
Brown, Albion W. Small, Rev. Geo. E. Horr, 
Jr., and Rev. Edmund F. Merriam, with others 
of marked ability ; and to have been the ac- 
knowledged peer of students like these was a 
pledge of success in the high calling to which 
he had devoted his life. I do not imagine 
that he was free from ambition ; few able men 
are ; but his ambition was suffused with kind- 
ness and transfigured by love to Christ. 

Before leaving the Seminary he was known 
to many of the churches. His personality, his 
manner in the pulpit, and the quality of his 



1 86 Richard Montas'ue. 



thought made him a favorite. The common 
people heard him gladly, and his services 
were no less acceptable to the educated and 
the refined. When his course at Newton 
was finished, he was called at about the same 
time to the pastorate of the First Baptist 
Church in Lawrence, and to the Central Bap- 
tist Church in Providence. It was no easy 
matter to determine which of these calls ought 
to be accepted. But he decided in favor of 
the one to Lawrence, in part, I believe, be- 
cause it was a smaller church than the other, 
and on that account less likely to overtax his 
strength. His ministry in Lawrence was suc- 
cessful, and the hearts of his people clung to 
him with strong afTection. He was unwilling 
to leave them in response to a call from this 
church, which at that time was anxious to 
make him its pastor. 

But after two years his friends in Providence, 
being again left without a pastor, renewed 
their call with such urgency that he heard in 
it the voice of God, and removed to that place. 
There, in a larger city and church, his services 
were in constant demand, and his energies 
taxed to the utmost. His ideals of church 



A Tribute, 187 

work were high, and he was content to be 
nothing less than a leader of the band. He 
longed for the growth of all in knowledge and 
love. He wished to see progress in every 
direction, especially in the upbuilding of men 
in truth and righteousness. And he tried to 
respond, with all the vigor and generosity of a 
noble spirit, to the ever-multiplying calls for 
public speech which are heaped upon one 
whom thousands in a large city delight to 
hear. 

Dr. Montague was invited while pastor of 
the Central Church in Providence to the chair 
of New Testament interpretation on the Hill, 
and the work w^as one that had special attrac- 
tions to his mind ; but the ties which bound 
him to his people were too strong to be 
severed. Yet he had not the physical strength 
of an athlete, and so it came to pass, as some 
had feared, that he was ere long stricken with 
disease and compelled to flee for his life to 
Colorado Springs. After a year of rest, he 
was made pastor of the Baptist church in that 
place, serving it with wonderful courage and 
usefulness during a period of six years. Then, 
assured by the ablest medical counsel that the 



1 88 Richard Montazue. 



climate of Colorado would render him no 
further assistance, and that he might expect 
to work as long in the East as in any other 
part of our land, he accepted the invitation of 
this church to be its pastor, ^ — explaining at 
the same time the limitations of which he was 
conscious, and engaging to do only such an 
amount of work as his health would permit. 
And we have all been witnesses of the mar- 
vellous resolution with which he fulfilled every 
jot and tittle of this engagement. We have all 
listened with deep joy and great profit to his 
preaching. We have often felt, as he ex- 
pounded the word of God and urged us to 
holy effort, that his appeals were fresh from 
the heart of Christ, and have almost expected 
to see his face shine as if he had come to us 
from the presence of his Lord. And in a 
very real sense, I suppose that it was even so. 
It is not too much to say that his words 
seemed oftentimes to "ring out" from ** crys- 
tal spheres," as clear and pure as if uttered by 
an angel. He came before us as one who was 
already looking into the faces of the just made 
perfect, quite as frequently as into the upturned 
faces of his congregation. 



A Tribute. 189 

In looking back over the life of Dr. Monta- 
gue since he entered the Seminary, I can only 
think of him as a man of rare personal worth. 
And I embrace in the idea of personal worth 
such qualities as moral courage, fairness of 
mind, purity of heart, and sincerity of speech. 
These are cardinal virtues. One who possesses 
them is fit to be a prince of men. But one 
who does not may indeed be polite and agree- 
able, enthusiastic and entertaining, but he lacks 
the qualities of safe leadership. 

I think of Dr. Montague as being also a man 
of superior attainments. His training in litera- 
ture and philosophy was thorough. His mind 
was regulated by discipline, enlarged' by study, 
and filled with truth. He understood music 
and loved the beauty of art as well as of nature. 
He was at home with the best English writers, 
and master of several languages ancient and 
modern. The voice was an instrument which 
he had learned to use with the greatest ease 
and eff"ect, or the last years of his ministry 
would have been a failure. Thus natural 
powers of a high order, and moral qualities 
of intrinsic worth, were improved by years of 
patient toil, before he entered on the duties 



IQO Richard Montague. 

of public life ; and the results of this were con- 
stantly seen in the lucid clearness of his lan- 
guage and the solid merit of his thought. 

Still more, I think of our sainted Montague 
as a man of God, who had been anointed for 
his work by the Holy Spirit. When he came 
to serv^e us in the ministry of Christ, he had 
been chastened by suffering, and had learned, 
as perhaps few of us know it, the tender 
Fatherhood of God. The grace which im- 
parts strength to weakness and brings joy out 
of pain, was at home in his soul. Nature and 
the Bible were glorified in his eyes by that 
grace. He loved his work, because he loved 
mankind with a brother's love, and believed 
with all his heart, that the gospel of Christ is 
the power of God unto salvation to every one 
that believeth. Yet he was hospitable to new 
phases of truth, and ready, down to the last 
weeks of life, to open every window of his 
mind to fresh light from the other side. But 
it must be light, and not darkness, and there- 
fore it could not weaken his confidence in the 
written word. His faith was immovable, and 
much of the time, during the last few weeks, 
his peace was like a river. 



A Tribute. 191 

More than this, I think of Dr. Montague — 
whose name is an ointment poured forth, filhng 
all the air with its fragrance — as a preacher 
of rare excellence. The action of his mind 
was swift and strong. The words which he 
employed were made for his thought, and 
came to him as " nimble servitors " in answer 
to his slightest call. The functions of memory 
and imagination were finely blended in his 
statements of truth. The tones of his voice 
were far-reaching and agreeable. The changes 
of his countenance were expressive of senti- 
ment and emotion, and his attitude in the pul- 
pit was unconstrained and manly. I can see 
his benignant smile when he spoke to us of 
the love of God. I can recall his wonderful 
tact in setting before us a neglected duty, or a 
service that Christ would be pleased to have 
us render. With his singing robes upon him, 
he would sometimes rise toward the sun, like 
the skylark addressed by the poet : — 

" Higher still and higher 

From the earth thou springest, 
Like a cloud of fire 

The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest." 



192 Richard Montague. 

But, after all, the charm of Dr. Montague's 
preaching was in the everlasting gospel which 
it announced. Without that, all possible feli- 
cities of manner would have failed to make it 
a savor of life unto life. But with it, and by 
means of it he laid foundations of character, 
that will abide though the rains descend and 
the floods come and the winds blow. His work 
with this people will not perish. His work in 
other places will bear fruit for ages to come. 
The work of those that sow to the Spirit is 
immortal. They may pass away, but their 
influence will remain. Yes, the life of our 
beloved brother was a long life, when meas- 
ured by spiritual chronometers, and estimated 
by thought and purpose, by heroic endurance 
and unflagging devotion till the sands of life 
were out. 

" Servant of God, well done ! 
Rest from thy loved employ ; 
The battle fought, the victory won, 
Enter thy Master's joy ! " 



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